They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

A disappointing follow-up to IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT,one of the most seminal films of the 60's,THEY CALL ME MISTER TIBBS! utilises perhaps the previous film's most famous line of dialogue,but all comparisons should end there.The personality clash between Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier that produced so many vivid and memorable dramatic scenes previously(albeit laced with some humour) is totally missing in this much inferior sequel.Poitier has rightly been praised for bringing dignity and respect to the black man on the American Screen after decades of humiliating and degrading stereotypes,but he looks oddly dispirited here with middling direction,an unexciting plot,and a dullish script.The inclusion of some fine character actors(Anthony Zerbe,Juano Hernandez,Ed Asner,Jeff Corey)is one of the film's few minor points of merit,and Poitier and Martin Landau do their best to make their scenes together have some dramatic impact,but they and others can only do so much with a somewhat banal script.The film may have been better had some pointless and unnecessary domestic scenes involving Tibbs' family(particularly his son) been removed,and which are basically irrelevant to the plot and seem to have been tagged on merely to add extra footage.

The film's best aspect is the musical score by Quincy Jones.Jones' funky interjections are most welcome,and indeed improve the quality of many sequences;it almost seems a touchstone for future blaxsploitation movie scores that were to soon follow,starting with the following year's SHAFT.The film is not totally unwatchable,but a disappointingly listless follow-up to the classic that preceded it.

Rating:5 out of 10.

San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is called in to investigate the murder of a prostitute. A community activist Rev. Logan Sharpe (Martin Landau) is accused of the murder.

This is possibly the most disappointing sequel of all times. Coming after the iconic 'In the Heat of the Night', this is best left to the bargain bin of movie history. The story is little more than a rambling police case. There isn't anything here that all other police drama hasn't done. The production value is best describe as 70s TV level. It has no energy, no tension, and no excitement. Sidney Poitier is the only thing that's of any interest. And he looked as frustrated as I was while watching this grind.

With its kipper ties, flared trousers and proficient - yet dated - music, They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! is perhaps the Poitier film that has aged least gracefully. While its prequel, In The Heat of the Night, was borne from the epitome of cool that was the sixties, here the seventies nurtured this film, which lends it a kitsch value, as well as the air of a t.v. movie. Though these elements - such as seeing the funky theme start up to the tune of Sidney clocking someone with a telephone, or Ed Asner (tv's Lou Grant) "drive" a car to a filmed backdrop - make it endearing and a must-see for a light-hearted Saturday night.

A world away from the usual Sidney vehicle we have here a trawl through San Francisco's red light districts, to which the family elements - though the most critically attacked - actually provide effective light. Also unusual is the amount of sexual tone Sidney is here allowed to display. Yet whereas in the former film Poitier was the big town Lieutenant working in small-town Mississippi, here he is on his own territory, thus shaving the film of one of its dimensions. Without Steiger to bounce off, what depth the script provides his character second time around comes from his wife and children, most notably his son. After slapping the boy into submission, Poitier hugs him, mourning the fact that "you're not perfect . and I can't forgive you." Not a perfectly-formed film by any means, this one does improve on repeated viewing, and the majority of ill feeling does seem to be down to disappointment. After all, how does one make a sequel to a movie that's hailed as a classic?

This sequel to "In the Heat of the Night" will suffer in inevitable comparisons to its infinitely better predecessor. Instead of looking like a theatrical movie edited for television, "Mister Tibbs" looks suspiciously like a TV movie edited for theatrical release, with grainy photography, cheesy opening titles, and sets that look like they're made of plywood. The murder sequence has a glaring continuity error: the camera shows two hands choking the girl, then a shot of a hand reaching for a statuette, then a shot of the girl being choked with two hands again, and finally the statuette coming down for the fatal blow. Solving the case should be easy: find the only guy with three hands! But the shoddy production values can't completely obscure this film's considerable merits: namely, Sidney Poitier's performance as the cool detective determined to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, even if it implicates a friend. Martin Landau is also convincing as the do-gooder preacher-activist suspected of brutally murdering his prostitute girlfriend. In addition to being haunted by the case, Tibbs is conflicted about his home life, but the issues of race and Tibbs' barely concealed sense of social outrage are absent here. So is the complex murder mystery that made "In the Heat of the Night" so compelling.

Love may be better the second time around, but movies usually aren't. There are exceptions, but this isn't one of them. Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is back home and out of that hellhole in Mississippi, but the excitement of In the Heat of the Night is missing.

He is doing his thing as a detective; trying to solve a murder where the chief suspect is his preacher friend Logan Sharpe (Martin Landau). The problem is that Gordon Douglas is no Norman Jewison and his direction does not have any magic. The acting is good, but the movie just seems to plod along, switching between Tibbs' home problems (And, I have to mention, his child abuse regarding his son.) and the murder. The fast pace of Jewison's effort is sadly missing.

It's a fair murder mystery, but the pace makes it one to skip.