''They Call Me Mister Tibbs!'' is a 1970 American

DeLuxe Color DeLuxe Color or Deluxe color or Color by DeLuxe is Deluxe Laboratories brand of color process for motion pictures. DeLuxe Color is Eastmancolor-based, with certain adaptations for improved compositing for printing (similar to Technicolor's "se ...

crime drama film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film, but al ...

directed by Gordon Douglas. The second installment in a trilogy, the release was preceded by '' In the Heat of the Night'' (1967) and followed by '' The Organization'' (1971). The film's title was taken from a line in the first film.

Sidney Poitier Sidney Poitier ( ; February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Among his ot ...

reprised his role of police detective Virgil Tibbs, though in this sequel, Tibbs is working for the San Francisco Police rather than the Philadelphia Police (as in the original film) or the Pasadena Police (as in the novels).

Plot

Detective Virgil Tibbs, now a lieutenant with the San Francisco police, is assigned to investigate the murder of a prostitute. A prime suspect is Reverend Logan Sharpe, a street preacher who is leading one of the sides in a city referendum on an urban renewal project. He tells Tibbs he was visiting the prostitute in his professional capacity, to advise her spiritually, and that when he left her apartment, she was alive and healthy. Tibbs tracks down and questions the janitor from the victim's building, Mealie Williamson, and Woody Garfield, a shady character who owns the building and might have been the dead woman's pimp, who sent the janitor into hiding. Later, suspicion falls on a hood named Rice Weedon, who is pursued and shot by Tibbs in self-defense. Tibbs’ ongoing investigation leads him to conclude that Sharpe really is the murderer. When confronted, Sharpe confesses; however, he requests that Tibbs not arrest him for 24 hours, until the polls close on the city referendum. When Tibbs refuses, Sharpe, while being taken away to be arrested, purposely steps in front of a moving vehicle and is killed.

Cast

Production

Quincy Jones Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024) was an American record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter, and bandleader. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received List of awards and nominations re ...

wrote the score, as he did with '' In the Heat of the Night'', although the tone of the music in each is markedly different. The previous film, owing to its setting, had a country and

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

y sound, whereas his work for this film was in the

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

''milieu'' that would become Jones' trademark in the early 1970s. The film's title was taken from Virgil's assertive response in ''In the Heat of the Night'' after the chief mockingly asked him what people call him in the city where he works. It was followed by a third film titled '' The Organization'' (

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses (Solar eclipse of February 25, 1971, February 25, Solar eclipse of July 22, 1971, July 22 and Solar eclipse of August 20, 1971, August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 1971 lunar eclip ...

). The film was the last appearance of veteran actor Juano Hernández, who died in July 1970, a few days after the film premiered.

Reception

The film has a 60% rating on

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as of June 2009. It did not attract nearly as positive a response as the series' 1967 debut, '' In the Heat of the Night'', which won five

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

including the

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

Best Picture Oscar The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards (also known as Oscars) presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the Film producer, producers ...

Musical score and soundtrack

The

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

was composed, arranged and conducted by

, and the

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ( ...

was released on the

United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...

label in 1970.Edwards, D & Callahan, M
Discography Preview for the United Artists label 40000 & 4000/5000 Series (1958-1972)
, accessed January 30, 2018

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

's Steven McDonald said "''They Call Me Mister Tibbs!'' had a more open, urban attitude from its San Francisco setting. The music throughout has an edge, with some interesting musical experiments going on ... Jones, as one example, used cimbalom to reflect Tibbs' feelings".

Track listing

All compositions by Quincy Jones # "Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)" − 4:33 # "'Rev' Logan (Organ Solo)" − 2:12 # "Blues for Mister Tibbs" − 6:27 # "Fat Poppadaddy" − 3:28 # "Soul Flower" − 4:20 # "Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)" − 2:15 # "Black Cherry" − 2:15 # "Family Man" − 1:20 # "Side Pocket" − 2:05 # "Why, Daddy?" − 3:08 # "Call Me Mister Tibbs (End Title)" − 0:46

Personnel

*Unidentified orchestra arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones including **

Carol Kaye Carol Kaye (née Smith; born March 24, 1935) is an American musician. She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 65 years. Kaye began play ...

electric bass The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an electric but with a longer neck and scale leng ...

Chuck Findley Charles B. Findley (born December 13, 1947, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is an American trumpet player known for his diverse work as a session musician. He also plays other brass instruments such as flugelhorn and trombone. His technical ab ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

** Emil Richards -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:They Call Me Mister Tibbs! 1970 films 1970 crime thriller films American crime thriller films American mystery films American sequel films Blaxploitation films Films scored by Quincy Jones Films directed by Gordon Douglas Films set in San Francisco Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Films shot in San Francisco Films with screenplays by James R. Webb American police detective films Virgil Tibbs United Artists films African-American films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films In the Heat of the Night (TV series) English-language crime thriller films