In the Heat of the Night

It has been 40 years since Sidney Poitier bellowed, “They call me Mr. Tibbs!” and MGM marks the occasion with this new special edition of the 1968 Best Picture Oscar winner. Groundbreaking for its time, the movie still relays a period of history in stark detail, as black police officer Virgil Tibbs battles racism and club-wielding rednecks while helping to solve a murder in the Deep South. As a small town’s conflicted police chief, Rod Steiger won the Best Actor Oscar, and the late actor is present here—though in short supply—on a commentary, which also includes separately recorded tracks by director Norman Jewison and cinematographer Haskell Wexler. The film’s context and significance is the subject of “Turning Up the Heat: Moviemaking in the Turbulent 60s,” a 21-minute featurette that includes comments from black filmmaker John Singleton and various authors and scholars in African-American studies. There’s also “The Slap Heard Around the World,” which takes an extended look at the famous scene in which Tibbs gets slapped by a white cotton magnate and instantly slaps him back.

Shelf Talk: The Heat of the Night reissue is part of an 18-month celebration leading up to United Artists’ 90th anniversary in 2009. Its austere, low-key box art foregoes the film’s violent elements in favor of a dignified image of Poitier, with Steiger looming in the background. Timed for release after the holiday rush, Heat will help get 2008 off to a classy start.