“They call me MISTER Tibbs!”
The most famous quote from the movie and one of the most famous quotes from 1960’s Hollywood is in many ways, arguably at least, the single movie quote from the era that most encapsulates Civil Rights movement. This is rare for a movie from the 1960’s, placed within context it still possesses the same power today. That context is that it is a reply from an African-American man from the north to the following spoken by a redneck Southern sheriff: “Virgil—that's a funny name for a n*gger boy that comes from Philadelphia! What do they call you up there?” So memorable is simple declaration of equality and demand for simple dignity that Sidney Poitier’s delivery of it helped it reach the lofty position of number sixteen on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 most memorable quotes in Hollywood history, just above “Rosebud” from Citizen Kane. Three years later the line become the title for a sequel about the character of Mr. Virgil Tibbs.
“Yeah, and meanwhile, you just killed yourself a white man, just about the most important white man we got around here, and you picked yourself up a couple hundred dollars!"
Before coolly but firmly insisting up being treated with respect and dignity, the Virgil Tibbs is the victim of racism. He just so happens to be a strange black man in southern city in the 1960’s at the time that a white man has been murdered. One of Gillespie’s deputies goes about the usual job of a sheriff’s deputy under such circumstances: arrest for the first black stranger. The deputy makes the mistake of not thoroughly searching his suspect, however, and shortly after Gillespie makes this insinuation based on absolutely no reason for suspicion whatever other than the color of the man’s skin, Tibbs shows him his Philadelphia police badge. The murder is really something of a MacGuffin to the narrative: few people can likely remember who actually did it because the real focus of the story is racism.
“There was a time when I could've had you shot.”
Endicott is the real power broker in the small town. His ownership of a cotton company directly links him to the sordid history of slavery and he is true-blue, deeply bigoted racist. This line is directed to Tibbs and it is the film’s most assertive indication of just how far America really had come by 1967. Endicott—exuding racial superiority with his every breath—has had about enough of the sense of equality exuding from the black northern policeman and so does what he likely has done too many times before to count: he slaps Tibbs across the face. To which Tibbs immediately responds by slapping him right back, right in front of the sheriff. The reality of the film is dubious; Endicott was still powerful enough to have had Tibbs killed and gotten away with it. How the scene reflects the progress of the Civil Rights movement was in allowing a black man to slap a white man on screen without retribution for what may have been the first time in the history of Hollywood.
“You're holding the wrong man! Because Colbert was killed here. Then driven back to town in his own car and dumped on the streets. Sam couldn't have driven two cars!”
Not that the murder is not essential to the narrative. Unlike most murder mysteries, however, the important question is not “who done it” but “who solved it?” The murder is essential because it presents an opportunity to show that a black police from the north is every bit as capable—more so, actually—than a bunch of corrupted, racist white cops in the south. But because it is film about equality and not superiority, what is most relevant is that the case is solved through cooperation and in the end the white racist sheriff makes a small move forward in terms of his own prejudices.
