Word: jewison
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Norman Jewison is Hollywood's most current rising young director, having tackled in his last two movies the problems of international and interracial coexistence, having packed them in with each, and having still more recently won the endorsement of Bosley Crowther, the critic's critic. The Jewison success story is in part a triumph of personal public relations, because back when he was boasting such dubious credits as Send Me No flowers and The Cincinnati Kid, Jewison was already giving interviews in which he posed as an emerging auter...
...mystery, Heat of the Night won't stand up Detective Poi tier does most of his investigating off screen, and several critical links to the murder's solution are left unexplained. Apparently realizing this, Jewison has defended the picture's weakness as a melodrama by saying, in effect, that it isn't one. He suggests that the real subject matter is the relationship between Poi tier and Stinger, and that the loose construction of the mystery throws proper emphasis onto that relationship. As long as this argument wasn't devised after the picture's completion, one can assume that Jewison...
...other hand, the murder in Heat of the Night does seem a bit more earthly than most movie crimes. And the slow, confusing solution probably has more to do with real police-work than its neat, ingenious melo-drama counterparts. Only Jewison isn't content with naturalism either; his detective relies excessively on a rather implausible knowledge of orchids, pules equally obscure and unlikely reservoirs of genius. Perhaps the most extreme example in this regard is the moment when Poitier snatches a weed off the accelerator of the victim's car and, a knowing smile on his face, says "Osmunda...
With his cast, Jewison is uneasy. Poitier, a perfectly competent actor, ends up doing just what he has done in his last dozen interchangeable movies. And Lee Grant, as a bereaved widow, overacts like crazy, feigning grief by endlessly shaking her head. Predictably, the most impressive performance is that of Rod Steiger, but even his is shrouded in the high-television fakery that dominates the movie...
...deep solutions are suggested in this subtle and meticulously observed study. Yet Director Norman Jewison has used his camera to extract a cer tain rough-cut beauty from each protagonist. He has shown, furthermore, that men can join hands out of fear and hatred and shape from base emotions something identifiable as a kind of love. In this he is immeasurably helped by performances from Steiger and Poitier that break brilliantly with black-white stereotype...