Product Details

• Actors: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates
• Directors: Norman Jewison
• Writers: John Ball, Stirling Silliphant
• Producers: Walter Mirisch
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: July 7, 1998
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304961693
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,405 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Both riveting murder mystery and classic fish-out-of-water yarn, Norman Jewison's Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night represents Hollywood at its wiliest, cloaking exposé in the most entertaining trappings. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger prove the decade's most formidable antagonists. Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, an arrogant homicide detective waylaid in Sparta, Mississippi; Steiger, in his bravura Oscar-winning turn, is Bill Gillespie, the town's hardheaded, bigoted sheriff who first arrests Tibbs for murder and then begs for his expertise. As the clues and suspects mount, Gillespie and his deputies develop begrudging respect for the black officer. The first-rate supporting cast includes Lee Grant as the victim's angry widow, Warren Oates as a voyeuristic deputy, William Schallert as the pragmatic mayor, and, in his screen debut, Scott Wilson (In Cold Blood) as an unlucky fugitive. The brilliant widescreen cinematography is by Haskell Wexler, and the scat-music score is by Quincy Jones. Ray Charles wails the blues theme song. --Glenn Lovell

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ALWAYS READ EVERYONE'S REVIEW..., February 4, 2008

By 

THE ATHLETIC STUD (SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Heat of the Night (40th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (DVD)

You know, that old saying, "Opinions, is like...(You know), everyone has one? I suppose, that can also apply to movie reviews, too. I read the review, that someone sent in, on the 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition of, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. It was very enlightening, but there was something about it, that just didn't make sense. That person indicated in their review, that there wasn't anything different in the 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition DVD, of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, which was released a few weeks ago, from the original DVD version, which was released, in 2005. When I read that person's review, I said to myself, "Well, there's no sense buying it again, just for the movie alone". Then, it occurred to me. Why would the studios release a great movie, like this one, on DVD...call it, "The 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition"...and not have any special features, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film? According to the review, of that person, and unfortunately, according the lack of special features info, on the Amazon page, I believed that person, and Amazon...Until the other night, when I saw the "The 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition" DVD of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, in the store. I flipped the cover around only to find out that there're not 1...not 2, but 3 featurettes:
1) TURNING UP THE HEAT: MOVIE-MAKING IN THE 1960'S
2) THE SLAP HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
3) QUNICY JONES: BREAKING NEW SOUND...(Which is worth buying the DVD for)
So, I bought it. I suppose, the point of all of this is. Actually, there're two points:
Don't go by only one's opinion or one's review, and the most important point: Amazon, you have a great web page, and we all know that you're trying to cut costs, but remember: You're trying to save, but in long run, you'll be losing...losing money and customers.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Great Actors in a Great Movie, May 19, 2002

By 

JLind555 - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In the Heat of the Night [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger almost set the screen afire in this film that deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1967. Superbly directed by Norman Jewison, the movie brings us into deepest Mississippi one summer midnight, when a northern industrialist with plans to build a new factory is found murdered in the middle of Sparta's main street. At the same time, Virgil Tibbs, a black detective from Los Angeles, is waiting at the station for the train that will take him back home from visiting his mother.

This being Mississippi, and a black man out after dark, it must have been the black man who committed the murder, right? Tibbs is hauled into the sheriff's office and brought face to face with Bill Gillespie, the epitome of every redneck law officer south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Gillespie's reaction to Tibbs is first contempt (this is a black man after all), suspicion at his full wallet ("Boy, that's more in a week than I make in a month, now where did you earn that?"), and finally shock, when Tibbs hurls the response into his face, "I'm a police officer."

Gillespie is further stunned to realize that Tibbs' contempt for him is at least as great as his for Tibbs, when he hears Tibbs telling his superiors over the phone "They got a murder on their hands, they don't know what to do with it." Tibbs' boss volunteers Tibbs's services as a homicide expert to Gillespie, who doesn't particularly want to accept, but he doesn't have much of a choice; the industrialist's widow says if her husband's murder isn't solved and fast, there won't be any factory anywhere. The resulting reluctant partnership between the two men is a pairing unlike any seen on screen; they resent each other but they can't solve the crime without each other; Gillespie needs Tibbs' expertise, and Tibbs needs Gillespie's protection from the local rednecks who want him dead.

The movie wonderfully evokes the atmosphere of a small town in the deep south, the abject poverty in which most of the blacks in the area lived, and the attitudes of the whites in town that made it dangerous for any black man to stand tall as a man. At the movie's end, Gillespie hasn't changed his views about blacks, but he has come to respect Tibbs as a lawman and as a human being; and Tibbs comes to realize that inside of Gillespie's hardshell racist attitudes is a decent man struggling to get out. The acting, the directing, and above all, Quincy Jones's magnificent score, made this one of the best movies of the 1960's and for years beyond.

Judy Lind

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I may be biased but....., March 25, 2008

By 

W. T. Waldron ""I am the Artman"" (Sparta, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Heat of the Night (40th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (DVD)

I live in Sparta Illinois where the movie was filmed in the fall of 1966. It took several viewings back in 1967 before I could get past the "I know whose house that is," and " Why did Stieger drive all the way around the block to get to the Mayor's place?"
Anyway, I wanted to add that the sound quality on this release is excellent. You can hear the rocks popping off of the police car's tires as Warren Oates slowly drives away from the diner. I also found the extras to be most interesting. The one on Quincy Jones and the soundtrack was very informative.
To fans of the film and its companions in the 1967 Oscar race I would also recomend "Pictures at A Revolution: Five movies and the Birth of the new Hollywood" by Mark Harris.