Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I won tickets to see Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (thanks Classic Movie Hub!) and I had the chance to see it yesterday afternoon as part of TMC's Big Screen Classics.  Even though the film is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this month, the themes are still just as relevant today.  Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton) brings her fiance Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) home to meet her parents.  This causes problems because, even though her parents (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) are liberals who have taught her to reject racial inequality, the fact that John is black forces them to confront their beliefs up close.  Joanna also invites John's parents (Roy E. Glenn and Beah Richards) to dinner which makes for a pretty tense evening.  This film is extremely thought-provoking and I was especially intrigued by the response of the family maid (Isabel Sanford), who is black, because she accuses John of trying to get above himself by marrying a white woman.  There is a lot of discussion in this film (the titular dinner begins at the very end) and there were two speeches that really struck me.  John says that his father thinks of himself as a black man while he thinks of himself as a man.  Joanna's father tells them that they will face obstacles but the only thing that really matters is how they feel about each other and I have to admit that I had a tear in my eye after that scene.  I did laugh out loud when Joanna's father hangs up the phone in the middle of his secretary's long recitation of John's  accolades after he asks her to investigate him.  Katherine Hepburn (who won an Academy Award for the role) and Spencer Tracy (who received a posthumous Academy Award nomination) are outstanding and Sidney Poitier more than holds his own with those two screen legends.  I highly recommend this film about the power of love and you are in luck because there is another opportunity to see it on the big screen on December 13 (go here for details).

Note:  I have really enjoyed the TCM Big Screen Classics series this year and I am excited that they will be continuing it in 2018!  The films are The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,  The Philadelphia Story, Vertigo, Grease, Sunset Boulevard, The Producers, Big, The Big Lebowski, South Pacific, Rebel Without a Cause, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Die Hard, and White Christmas.  Doesn't that sound fabulous?