Word: poitier
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER. Stanley Kramer's new film sets out bravely to face the problems of the marriage of a Negro man (Sidney Poitier) to a white girl (Katharine Houghton) but retreats into sugary platitudes despite the rallying performances of Spencer Tracy, as the girl's liberal but reluctant father, and Katharine Hepburn, as her sentimental mother...
...archetypical. For a crusty old bear of a liberal newspaper publisher and his dashing, efficient career wife, who else but Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn starring in their ninth movie together? For the Negro fiancé, who else to choose but the smooth and handsome Sidney Poitier? What would Poitier's mother be if not sweet and sensitive, and Beah Richards (Raisin in the Sun, The Miracle Worker) is the best sweet-and-sensitive Negro mother in all of show business...
...blonde. Everyone is poleaxed by the news: Hepburn puts on that blank stare one remembers from Bringing Up Baby. Tracy's seamed old face knits together, and his chin goes up like that of an Indian chief reading threatening smoke signals. The Negro maid upbraids Poitier as a "smooth-talking, smart-ass nigger" taking advantage of her little girl. Only the family friend, lovable Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellaway), is unfazed, as a good Catholic priest should...
...situation being carefully stacked by the scriptwriters, Poitier, of course, is no ordinary Negro. Not only handsome, charming and intelligent, he is also an M.D. with enough degrees, honors and professorships behind him to make Ralph Bunche feel like an underachiever. Mother Hepburn is soon won over to his side; Father Tracy greatly admires the boy but sees too much unhappiness ahead to give his approval. The same attitudes are echoed by Poitier's mother and father, a retired mailman. These are the guess-whos that come to dinner-or rather a prolonged cocktail hour, during which everybody pairs...
Thursday, October 19 CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIES (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Two chain-gang fugitives (Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis) are shackled together during a five-day flight in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones...