Sidney Poitier's career began to peak in the midsixties. Thanks to director Stanley Kramer, he had
already garnered his first Academy Award nomination
for his performance in The Defiant Ones (1958) and
in 1963, he won the Best Actor Oscar for Lilies of the
Field.
Then, in 1966, Poitier was approached by Kramer to
star in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a film that would explore the
issue of interracial marriage. Kramer stated in an interview at the time that
he felt the question of race relations could be explored in a motion picture in
very personal terms and in such a way that any moviegoer could relate to
the characters.
In the biography Stanley Kramer: Filmmaker by Donald Spoto, the director
recalled that "the idea for it came about while I was walking with William
Rose one evening in Beverly Hills. Now, Bill Rose is a good comedy writer.
Remember, he did It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) with me.
Anyway, as we walked, he told me a story, mostly a comedy, about a white
South African man, a liberal, whose daughter falls in love with a black guy. I
said, 'Geez, we ought to set the story here, in this country, in this
background....I thought to myself, 'What a sorry sight to see a front-line
liberal come face to face with all his principles right in his own house.' I also
thought, 'What a perfect situation for a picture for [Spencer] Tracy." Kramer
also knew it would be a perfect vehicle for Poitier but first he secured Tracy
and Katharine Hepburn's involvement. As he recounted in his own
autobiography, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Kramer said, "I told Sidney
I had no script but that I did have Tracy and Hepburn. Sidney already was a
star at that point, but he said, 'I don't know if you can bring it off with the
studio, but I'll tell you I'll do it. Absolutely.' So I had three stars committed
in heart and principle before I had a word of dialogue on paper."
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is remembered today for two significant
reasons: It was the first Hollywood film to portray an interracial romance
that had an optimistic ending, and the film featured a dream cast that
included Spencer Tracy's final screen performance. Although Tracy was
seriously ill at the time, Hepburn knew that, with her help and a restricted
shooting schedule, he would be able to work. According to Kramer, Tracy
"had no physical energy for the shooting of this film, and so we had to film it
only in the morning. Columbia doesn't know to this day that we shot only
half days. They didn't believe the film would be a commercial success
anyway, and if they'd known our schedule they would have been doubly
furious."
Despite Tracy's poor health, filming on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
proceeded smoothly. Ninety per cent of the movie was shot on one set, the
Drayton home, which was created on a sound stage. Exteriors for the
Drayton's San Francisco house were shot in Pasadena, California and
background mattes of the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and
other scenic landmarks were also used.
Hepburn, in particular, immersed herself in the production, often issuing
recommendations on the lighting, wardrobe and camera angles, despite
Kramer's comments about her repressed directorial ambitions. Poitier,
however, was rather daunted by the prospect of working with Hepburn - and
her real-life companion, Tracy. In his autobiography, This Life, he wrote, "I
wasn't able to get this out of my head: I am here playing a scene with Tracy
and Hepburn! It was all so overwhelming I couldn't remember my lines. With
the other actors I was fine....Finally Stanley Kramer said to me, "What are
we going to do?" I said, "Stanley, send those two people home. I will play
the scene against two empty chairs. I don't want them here because I can't
handle that kind of company." He sent them home. I played the scene in
close-up against two empty chairs as the dialogue coach read Mr. Tracy's
and Miss Hepburn's lines from off-camera."
The role of Dr. John Prentice, a renown doctor working with the United
Nations, was one that earned Poitier a great deal of attention -- both
positive and negative. While Poitier was at the pinnacle of his acting career
in terms of popularity and earning power, the character of Dr. Prentice was
derided by many critics as being "too perfect." Black activists also criticized
the character for being non-threatening and an improbable superhero.
The portrayal of the relationship between Poitier and Katharine Houghton
(Hepburn's actual niece), who played his fiancee, was also lambasted for not
giving much screen time to their romance. Poitier biographer William
Hoffman later wrote that several shots of the couple kissing were edited out
of the final version. In fact, the only time you see the two actors' lips meet
in the movie is in a brief scene where a cab driver glimpses them kissing in
his rear view mirror.
Stanley Kramer had the reputation among critics and moviegoers as a
filmmaker who made "message films." He had already made several hardhitting dramas with Tracy, including Inherit the Wind (1960) and Judgment
at Nuremberg (1961), though neither were huge moneymakers. But when
Tracy and Kramer first discussed the possibility of Columbia Studio funding
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Tracy pointed out that although studios
claimed to "knock message pictures," they certainly didn't turn their backs
on films that made money.
Yet, Tracy's deteriorating health made the film a risky venture for the studio.
Because the ailing actor was uninsurable, Hepburn and Kramer placed their
salaries into escrow accounts - to be used by the studio as collateral in the
event that Tracy died before the film was completed. Just 10 days after the
filming wrapped, Tracy did indeed pass away and Guess Who's Coming to
Dinner went on to become Columbia's highest-grossing theatrical feature to
date, taking in $25 million.
The film's success was also responsible for making Poitier the first AfricanAmerican box office star in its history and one of Hollywood's most popular
actors. Recently, Poitier cited Stanley Kramer in the list of directors, writers
and producers who had helped make his phenomenal career a reality, in an
era when the odds of a black actor achieving his level of success would not
have "fallen in his favor," as he so eloquently stated at the 2002 Academy
Awards.
Producer/Director: Stanley Kramer
Screenplay: William Rose
Production Design: Robert Clatworthy
Cinematography: Sam Leavitt
Costume Design: Joe King, Jean Louis
Film Editing: Robert C. Jones
Original Music: Frank De Vol
Principal Cast: Spencer Tracy (Matt Drayton), Katharine Hepburn (Christina
Drayton), Sidney Poitier (John Prentice), Katharine Houghton (Joey
Drayton), Cecil Kellaway (Monsignor Ryan), Beah Richards (Mrs. Prentice),
Virginia Christine (Hilary St. George).
C-109m. Letterboxed.Closed captioning.
by Genevieve McGillicuddy
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/23790/Guess-Who-s-Coming-to-Dinner/articles.html
1967 Academy Awards®
Winners and History
From
The Oscar ceremony in April 1968 was delayed by two days (and held on April 10) due to Martin Luther
King's assassination on April 4th. This year marked the first year that the cinematography categories were
merged back together - after 28 years. No longer would there be a distinction between color and blackand-white films. This would also be true for the categories of Art Direction and Costume Design.
The Oscar race was remarkably even between four of the five nominees. The films nominated for Best
Picture in 1967 reflected the changing and schizophrenic times:
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two films with black-racial themes (both starring Sidney Poitier)
one film with a graphically-violent ending
one film reflecting the changing mores between the generations
and the fifth - a fanciful children's story
The ultimate (surprise) compromise winner in the Best Picture category was director Norman Jewison's
engrossing thriller-murder mystery and sleeper comedy/drama film, In the Heat of the Night (with seven
nominations and five wins - Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best
Sound). It illustrated the racial tension, prejudice, and eventual mutual respect and camaraderie
expressed between a black police detective from the North (Philadelphia) and a Southern racist, white
police chief in the small Mississippi town of Sparta, where both were compelled to work together on the
same homicide case. The film, with a non-white actor in a lead acting role, was so controversial that it
couldn't be filmed in the Deep South, so the sets were recreated in various small towns in two states:
Sparta, Freeburg, and Belleville, Illinois, and Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Another Best Picture nominee that was considered controversial because of its racial theme (it was
Hollywood's first mainstream film about inter-racial marriage!) was liberal director Stanley Kramer's
socially-relevant problem-comedy of racial co-existence, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (with ten
nominations and only two wins - Best Actress and William Rose's Best Story/Screenplay). It was about a
liberal couple (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) who are values-challenged when their sole young
daughter (Katharine Houghton) brings home her prospective marriage partner - a world-renowned black
surgeon (a typecast role for Sidney Poitier, the biggest box-office star at the time).
http://www.filmsite.org/aa67.html