Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)

A young girl (Katharine Houghton) returns from Hawaii with her fiance (Sidney Poitier) in tow to introduce him to her parents, a prominent newspaper publisher (Spencer Tracy, who died two weeks after filming the movie) and an art gallery owner (Katharine Hepburn). She's convinced her liberal parents will have no objections to her marrying a black man. But it's not as simple as all that. Directed by Stanley Kramer, the King of 1950s and 1960s "message" movies. At the movies, nothing dates faster than topicality but GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER creaked even in 1967. While its message was certainly relevant (miscegenation laws had only been struck down by the Supreme Court six months before the film opened), its execution is too pat. Poitier is handsome, educated, a gentleman and a doctor to boot. Who wouldn't want to marry him? As the film progresses, you wonder what he sees in the chirpy air headed Houghton! What if she had brought home a black plumber instead of a prestigious doctor working with the World Health Organization? Would her liberal parents have felt differently? It's all just too glossy (the twilight sunset on the terrace overlooking San Francisco bay, the art gallery, the Monsignor family friend etc.). Isabel Sanford's family maid doesn't play well at all in 2018! Good intentions do not a good movie make. There is one performance that cuts through the contrivance of it all: a lovely heartfelt performance by Beah Richards as Poitier's mother. Hepburn's best actress Oscar win is inexplicable (she doesn't do much). With Cecil Kellaway, Roy Glenn, Virginia Christine and Alexandra Hay.