Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Thoughts: Starring the ultimate black actor, Sydney Pottier, this film takes a step in the direction of race relations. I thought that the film would have been more controversial, but Stanley Kramer (the director) really watered the situation down in the following ways:

1) Sydney Pottier and Katharine Houghton (the interracial couple) have only met about a week ago. If I were Spencer Tracy, I’d be a little hesitant to allow my daughter to marry someone whom she has only recently met. It seemed that he was faced with the decision to either let his daughter marry this mystery man or be considered a racist for thinking it too soon.

2) Pottier’s character was a doctor who did nothing but selfless acts for mankind and was extremely articulate. It was like Houghton was bringing home some grown man that goes by “Pookie”.   

and

3) There wasn’t a huge cultural difference. In fact, the only difference was skin tone and melanin production. (Maybe this is what Kramer was trying to get across).

Despite these little irritants, the film was wonderfully done. I enjoy the stable scenery, only two or three times was the setting outside of the house. By far, the black housekeeper was the most irritating part of this movie. I was waiting for Pottier to slap her as he did to the man on “In the Heat of the Night”.

All in all this was a great overall film and was very advanced for its time (when something of this nature was strictly forbidden in parts of the country at that time).