Word: poitier
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...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...
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...