alli hobbs

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

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A body of a rich man is found on the main street of a small Mississippi town.  Bumbling local authorities luckily mistake Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) — a quick witted, sharp-dressed homicide detective from Philadelphia — for a suspect. After being taken in, he is dragged into the investigation and small town politics, butting heads with the police chief, minor rednecks, and rich good ole boys. Virgil makes his way surrounded at all times by potentially violent white supremacists, who resent him for not only being black but also for being successful, with only facts and quick reflexes as he plunges headfirst into town drama.

The setting of the South itself is as much a character as Virgil. The hot weather permeates every scene of In the Heat of the Night with its humidity. There’s squeaking air conditioners and sweat rolling off of everyone. Every backroad is dusty and treacherous. There’s fields of cotton with hunched over weather beaten pickers right before a scenic driveway to a plantation. The broken down desperation is constant. In the Heat of the Night could have simply been a crime movie (at some point I thought to myself that this movie vaguely has the same feel as a really good Columbo episode) but the setting is everything. Virgil is a successful black man in a town run by poor, angry white men. The heat is as oppressive as the prejudice and bigotry.

The setting is hostile. The people are racist. But it’s pretty satisfying to watch Sidney Poitier play a no nonsense successful detective constantly proving everyone wrong and blatantly disobeying people who order him around like a dog, calling him “boy.” One of the best moments of the movie is when a rich racist man slaps him and without hesitation he slaps back. Being from 1967, this feels like such a rallying point: that finally on film a black man can slap back.

During the opening credits, one thing I found kind of surprising is that Hal Ashby edited this film. I wasn’t aware of his editing work, so I was kind of eager to find out what the guy who directed Harold and Maude and Being There could bring to the editing table. It turns out a lot. His quick cuts and the cinematography of Haskell Wexler (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) result in a movie that’s just as moving technically as it is acting and story-wise.

In the Heat of the Night is a well paced, beautifully shot thriller. Just watching it, you can feel the humid Southern air. Poitier playing a stubborn and heroic bigotry-defying Tibbs is definitely iconic. And even if it weren’t for all of that, it would still be a good crime movie.

-Alli Hobbs

Summer with Monika (1953)

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Harry Lund, play by Lars Ekborg, is a young man working a stressful first job as a delivery boy for a stockroom of glass and porcelain. He is quiet, serious, and melancholy. Monika, played by Harriet Andersson, is a young woman toiling away in the cellar-turned-stockroom of a grocer. She is loud, impulsive, and mercurial. They meet, they fall in love, and then, they disastrously fall out of it.  Yet, that makes it sound so simple.

What struck me about Summer with Monika was how well it captured young romance. In fact for the first few scenes of the movie, I thought the tone was a bit too positive to be a Bergman film. When Monika first meets Harry, after he nervously has trouble lighting a match, she says to him, “Let’s go away and never come back. We’ll see the whole wide world.” They subsequently steal Harry’s father’s boat and have an adventure that reminded me of Moonrise Kingdom. Unlike the quirky preteen Wes Anderson version, this movie refuses to shy away from the character flaws and aftermath that come from running away from all your problems.

This movie is punctuated by long scenic shots and closeups of the main characters’ faces. Although many of those shots are beautifully filmed and effective, they give the film a little bit of an awkward, unfocused feel. The most poignant moments are when we as the audience are forced to play voyeur, unable to break away from Harry and Monika’s flaws, fights, and make outs.

The character of Monika is written such an understanding insight. It’s easy to forget that this movie was released in 1953, since her depiction is still incredibly relevant and even modern feeling. While she ultimately ends up being the antagonist, you see a little of what makes her tick. She’s hard to sympathize with. She’s loud. She’s moody and whiny.  Yet there are several times when the film shows her point of view.  There’s a scene at her terrible job where she’s basically constantly sexually harassed. At another point, her dad goes from a joking, happy drunk to slapping her to crying. She is not blameless in the end, but she’s also not just presented as a two dimensional floozy. She’s a realistic, incredibly flawed, female character.

Summer With Monika takes the notion of idealistic young love and rips it apart and dissects it in intimate detail. Andersson’s performance as the fiery Monika is wonderful and Ekborg pulls off the young, naive, melancholy loverboy with ease. In fact by the time you get to the downer Bergman ending, it’s really no surprise. It is an unflinching peek into how quickly things can go from seeming idyllic to completely falling apart.

-Alli Hobbs