See Sidney Poitier in rare behind-the-scenes… | Little White Lies

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See Sid­ney Poiti­er in rare behind-the-scenes pho­tos from In the Heat of the Night

18 Jan 2022

Words by Charles Bramesco

Three people, two men and one woman, embracing and smiling in a black and white photograph.
Three people, two men and one woman, embracing and smiling in a black and white photograph.
They’re part of Park Cir­cus and MGM’s upcom­ing Poiti­er trib­ute, which includes screen­ings of the film.

The first cou­ple weeks of 2022 have sad­ly seen a spike in deaths for beloved artists and enter­tain­ers, few of which hit hard­er than the loss of the unpar­al­leled thes­pi­an Sid­ney Poiti­er. The actor gave us a host of indeli­ble per­for­mances and broke bar­ri­ers for African-Amer­i­can per­form­ers in the indus­try, leav­ing behind an incal­cu­la­ble lega­cy of excel­lence and progress.

Film dis­trib­u­tor Park Cir­cus has teamed with MGM to pay homage to Poitier’s mem­o­ry in the most fit­ting way of all: by bring­ing his mas­ter­ly work back to the mass­es. The 1967 crime mys­tery In the Heat of the Night, arguably Poitier’s finest role, will soon return to cin­e­mas so that audi­ences can see one of the Hol­ly­wood firmament’s bright­est stars as he was meant to be seen.

In the film, Poiti­er por­trays a Philadel­phi­an inspec­tor sum­moned to Mis­sis­sip­pi for a mur­der case, only to find that the town’s police chief (Rod Stieger, who won the Acad­e­my Award while Poiti­er was snubbed) is a dyed-in-the-wool racist. But they’ll have to work togeth­er if they want to bring the killer to jus­tice, a job that grad­u­al­ly builds a begrudg­ing mutu­al respect between the two at-odds men.

The film will come to all Odeon cin­e­mas across the UK on 25 Jan­u­ary and a host of oth­er loca­tions around the UK and the rest of the world in the sur­round­ing days. You haven’t real­ly heard Poiti­er growl They call me Mis­ter Tibbs!” until you’ve heard it on a pro­fes­sion­al sound system.

To pro­mote this upcom­ing revival run, Park Cir­cus and MGM are shar­ing a trea­sure trove of lit­tle-seen behind-the-scenes pho­tos from the pro­duc­tion of In the Heat of the Night, show­cas­ing a warmer side to the tense film.

Poiti­er may be famed for a cer­tain dis­tin­guished sten­to­ri­an qual­i­ty, and the film is built around the grit­ted-teeth acri­mo­ny between his and Stieger’s char­ac­ters, but the images below see them cor­dial and laugh­ing with one anoth­er, just glad to be doing what they love.

Group of three adults, one man and two women, sitting at a table and looking at documents together.
Three people, two men and one woman, embracing and smiling in a black and white photograph.
Black-and-white image showing a group of people in a studio setting. A man stands in the centre, surrounded by others, with film equipment and props visible.
Man holding clapperboard on a film set
Three men conversing outside a building, one in a police uniform and two in casual clothing.
Black and white image of a smiling, well-dressed man in a suit, gesturing with his hands. Two other people visible in the background.
Two men, one Caucasian and one African-American, embracing affectionately in black and white photograph.
Man boarding a train carriage, in a suit, surrounded by other people.
Black and white image showing people gathered around a person lying on the ground, likely injured. Two men in suits stand next to the person on the ground, while others surround the scene. Vehicles and debris are visible in the background.

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