| 92nd | Top works published posthumously |
| Guess Who's Coming to Dinner | |
|---|---|
 original movie poster |
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| Directed by | Stanley Kramer |
| Produced by | Stanley Kramer |
| Written by | William Rose |
| Starring | Spencer Tracy Sidney Poitier Katharine Hepburn Katharine Houghton |
| Music by | Frank DeVol |
| Cinematography | Sam Leavitt |
| Editing by | Robert C. Jones |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | December 12, 1967 |
| Running time | 108 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD$4,000,000 (est.) |
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton. It was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. The movie's Oscar-nominated score was composed by Frank DeVol. [1]
The groundbreaking story deals with the controversial subject of interracial marriage, which historically had been illegal in most of the United States, and was still illegal in seventeen southern American states up until June 12 of the year of the film's release. Although legalized throughout the U.S. following the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, the topic was still taboo in many areas.
The film also touches on black-on-black racism, as when both the doctor's father and the household cook Matilda 'Tillie' Binks, played by Isabel Sanford in a small but memorable role, take the young man to task for his perceived presumption.
The film is also notable for being the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn (Tracy died seventeen days after filming ended). In Tracy's final speech of the film, Hepburn's tears were real—they both knew that this would be the last line of his last film, that he had not much longer to live. Hepburn never saw the completed film; she said the memories of Tracy were too painful. The film was released in December 1967, six months after his death.[2]
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Joanna "Joey" Drayton is a young Caucasian American woman who has had a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice, an African American man she met while on vacation in Hawaii. Prentice plans to fly to New York later that night then on to an assignment in Switzerland. Joanna plans to join him there soon to be married even though she has only known him for ten days. The plot is centered on Joanna’s return to her liberal upper class American home in San Francisco, bringing her new fiancé to dinner to meet her parents, and the reaction of family and friends.
According to director Stanley Kramer, he and screenwriter William Rose intentionally structured the film to debunk ethnic stereotypes; the young doctor, a typical role for the young Sidney Poitier, was purposely created idealistically perfect, so that the only possible objection to his marrying Joanna would be his race, or the fact she only met him ten days earlier. Therefore, he has graduated from a top school, begun innovative medical initiatives in Africa, refused to have premarital sex with his fiancée despite her willingness, and leaves money on his future father-in-law's desk in payment for a long distance phone call he has made.
Stanley Kramer stated later that the principal actors believed so strongly in the premise that they agreed to act in the project even before seeing the script. Spencer Tracy was dying and insurance companies refused to cover him; Kramer and Hepburn put their salaries in escrow so that if he died, filming could be completed with another actor. The filming schedule was altered to accommodate Tracy's failing health.
Critical reaction to the film was more positive than negative, with most critics praising the elegant, understated performances.
The original version of this film that played in theaters in 1967 contained the sarcastic one-liner "The Reverend Martin Luther King?", spoken by the sassy maid Tillie in response to the question, "Guess who's coming to dinner now?" (meaning Monsignor Ryan). However, after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, this line was removed from the film, so by August 1968, almost all theater showings of this film had this line omitted. As early as 1969, the line was restored to many but not most prints, and the line was preserved in the VHS and DVD versions of the film as well. (The key line of dialogue from which the film got its title, "Guess who's coming to dinner?" (meaning the parents of the character played by Sidney Poitier), is spoken by Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy.)
The film won two Academy Awards and two BAFTAs:[3]
Stanley Kramer directed a remake for television in 1975. The 2005 film Guess Who starring Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac is a loose remake, with the racial roles reversed; black parents are caught off-guard when their daughter brings home the young white man she has chosen to marry. Critics found the subject matter badly dated.
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Mr Prentice's speech to his father:
"Listen to me. You say you don't want to tell me how to live my life? What do you think you've been doing?
You tell me what rights I've got or haven't got... and what I owe to you for what you've done for me.
Let me tell you something.
I owe you nothing.
If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you were supposed to do, because you brought me into this world, and from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me. Like I will owe my son, if I ever have another.
But you don't own me.
You can't tell me when or where I'm out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules.
You don't even know what I am, Dad. You don't know who I am, how I feel, what I think. And If I tried to explain it the rest of your life, you would never understand.
You are years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the dead weight be off our backs! You understand, you've got to get off my back!
Dad.
You're my father. I'm your son, I love you. I always have and I always will.
But you think of yourself as a colored man.
I think of myself... as a man."
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 comedy-drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Houghton. The movie centers around what happens between a young white woman and her parents after she falls in love with a black man.
  | imdb releaseinfo - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) |
| | Sidney Poitier about his children becoming president - YouTube - Sidney Poitier presages Barack Obama (1967) |
| | NY Times: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - Awards - NYTimes.com |
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