Oscar’d in ‘67, if now little celebrated, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT/’67 at least had timing going for it. With hot-button Civil Rights issues lending purpose to its murder investigation, it’s deservedly half-remembered. Three years on, the sequel is all swings & misses, the precipitous drop in quality matching dud sequels like TRUE GRIT ➔ ROOSTER COGBURN; 2001 ➔ 2010; THE EXORCIST ➔ THE EXORCIST II; or THE HANGOVER ➔ PARTS II ➔ III. With subpar production values & under-dressed sets you might have seen at the time in a Quinn Martin tv series, it's unaccountable from a heavyweight producer like Walter Mirisch. Hack director Gordon Douglas (fresh off a declining trio of Frank Sinatra detective pics) suffering shoddy tech work & some odd, smeary lensing. But then, what could anyone have done with this lazy police procedural? Hookers, flaccid dicks, cocaine, hypocritical curates, politics and propositions; plus Mister Tibbs’ personal parental problems. Poitier, smelling a dog, goes on auto-pilot, only rising for a few scenes with Martin Landau's not-so-principled pastor and disciplining his stubborn brat of a boy, slapping the disrespectful 'tween on the face. Isn’t that what obnoxious kid’s bottoms are for? So the welts won’t show.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Stick with IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. And let us know how it holds up.
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