Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

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For the Black Uhuru album, see Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (album).
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

original movie poster
Directed by Stanley Kramer
Produced by Stanley Kramer
Written by William Rose
Starring Spencer Tracy
Sidney Poitier
Katharine Hepburn
Music by Frank DeVol
Cinematography Sam Leavitt
Editing by Robert C. Jones
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) December 12, 1967
Running time 108 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget USD$4,000,000 (est.)
IMDb

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Katharine Houghton. It was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. The movie's Oscar-nominated score was composed by Frank DeVol. [1]

The groundbreaking story deals with the controversial subject of interracial marriage, which historically had been illegal in most of the United States, and was still illegal in seventeen southern American states up until June 12 of the year of the film's release. Although legalized throughout the U.S. following the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, the topic was still taboo in many areas.

The film also touches on black-on-black racism, as when both the doctor's father and the household cook Matilda 'Tillie' Binks, played by Isabel Sanford in a small but memorable role, take the young man to task for his perceived presumption.

The film is also notable for being the last on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn (Tracy died seventeen days after filming ended). In Tracy's final speech of the film, Hepburn's tears were real—they both knew that this would be the last line of his last film, that he had not much longer to live. Hepburn never saw the completed film; she said the memories of Tracy were too painful. The film was released in December 1967, six months after his death. [2]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Joanna "Joey" Drayton (Katharine Houghton) is a young white American woman who has had a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), an African American man she met while on a holiday in Hawaii. Prentice plans to fly to New York later that night then on to an assignment in Switzerland. Joanna plans to join him there soon to be married even though she has only known him for a very short period of time. The plot is centered on Joanna’s return to her liberal upper class American home in San Francisco, bringing her new fiance to dinner to meet her parents (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), and the reaction of family and friends.

[edit] Cast

Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn in a pivotal scene from the film.


[edit] Production

According to director Stanley Kramer, he and screenwriter William Rose intentionally structured the film to debunk ethnic stereotypes; the young doctor, a typical role for the young Sidney Poitier, was purposely created idealistically perfect, so that the only possible objection to his marrying Joanna would be his race, or the fact she only met him ten days earlier. Therefore, he has graduated from a top school, begun innovative medical initiatives in Africa, refused to have premarital sex with his fiancee despite her willingness, and leaves money on his future father-in-law's desk in payment for a long distance phone call he has made.

Stanley Kramer stated later that the principal actors believed so strongly in the premise that they agreed to act in the project even before seeing the script. Spencer Tracy was dying and insurance companies refused to cover him; Kramer and Hepburn put their salaries in escrow so that if he died, filming could be completed with another actor. The filming schedule was altered to accommodate Tracy's failing health.

[edit] Reception

Critical reaction to the film was more positive than negative, with most critics praising the elegant, understated performances.

The original version of this film that played in theaters in 1967 contained the sarcastic one-liner "The Reverend Martin Luther King!", issued by the sassy black maid Tillie in response to the question, "Guess who's coming to dinner?", which is the key line of dialogue from which the film got its title. However, after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, this line was removed from the film, so by August 1968, almost all theater showings of this film had this line omitted. As early as 1969, the line was restored to many but not most prints, and the line was preserved in the VHS and DVD versions of the film as well.

[edit] Awards and honors

[edit] Wins

The film won two Academy Awards and two BAFTAs: [3]

[edit] Nominations

[edit] American Film Institute recognition

[edit] Remake

The 2005 film Guess Who starring Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac is a loose remake, with the racial roles reversed; black parents are caught off-guard when their daughter brings home the young white man she has chosen to marry. Critics found the subject matter badly dated.

[edit] Miscellany

  • On November 1, 2008 New York Times Op-ed columnist Frank Rich wrote on the striking numbers of similarities between President-elect Barack Obama and Sydney Poitier's character in the film. Among other similarities, Rich notes their demeanor, their time frame, and their connection to Hawaii.

What is also interesting is that in the movie this Dr. Prentice (Poiter's character) tells Joanna's father that Joanna is so optimistic that she thinks their children could be the President of the United States of America, he on the other hand would settle for Secretary of State. This movie was shot in 1967 and Barack Obama, the son of a white mother and a black father who met in Hawaii, was born in 1961 and is the 44th president of the United States of America.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Joel Whitburn, Top Pop Albums 1955-2001 (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, 2001), 1018.
  2. ^ imdb releaseinfo
  3. ^ "NY Times: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/21044/Guess-Who-s-Coming-to-Dinner/awards. Retrieved on 2008-12-27. 

[edit] External links


v • d • e
The Tracy & Hepburn films

Woman of the Year (1942) • Keeper of the Flame (1942) • Without Love (1945) • The Sea of Grass (1947) • State of the Union (1948) • Adam's Rib (1949) • Pat and Mike (1952) • Desk Set (1957) • Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
v • d • e
Films directed by Stanley Kramer
1950s
1960s
Inherit the Wind (1960) • Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World • Ship of Fools (1965) • Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) • The Secret of Santa Vittoria
1970s
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