Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (40th Anniversary Edition) Reviews

• Flawed, but important film

  
  By A2RMH46E7TDI0C on 2004-12-14
  1967's Guess Who's Coming To Dinner probably raised more than a few eyebrows at the time of it's release. Sadly though, if you can not put yourself in the mindset of that time, the potential emotional impact of the film will be lost on you.
  
  Set in the San Fransisco of the late 1960's, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner tells the story of Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton) bringing her boyfriend of a mere 10 days, Dr. John Wade Prentice (Sidney Poitier), home to meet her parents. What the parents (played by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) don't know is A)she is coming home, B)that she has a boyfriend she is planning to marry C)that said boyfriend is African-American and that D)said boyfriend is 14 years older than she.
  
  Dr. Prentice informs Joey's parents of his intentions to marry their daughter, but also informs them he will not marry Joanna without their permission. To further complicate matters though, they only have this one day to decide if they approve as he is due to leave for Geneva Switzerland for a job. What ensues is a family's hopes and dreams for their daughter being analyzed and re-thought in the span of a mere few hours. Trying to decide if their daughter's happiness should outweigh the inevitable hardships she will face in a relationship such as this.
  
  The film spares no time in setting up just how happy the new couple are, and also does not waste time in letting you know the difficulties an interracial couple will face at this time in American history. Sadly though, it goes wrong in several other areas that are disturbing. The cookie-cutter characters in this film abound. The Irish Catholic Monsignor, the wise-to-the-world African American housekeeper and the busy-body friend of the Mother who has to be put in her place. If you can look pass these worn out, two-dimensional characters though, there is a poignant story of how love truly should conquer all.
  
  Going back and watching a film that deals with race relations from a different time period can, however, be enlightening. Not once do you hear the term "African American". You do hear the "N" word once, but it is used by the housekeeper towards Dr. Prentice. It is still shocking to hear it blurted out all of a sudden, but again, you have to remember the time frame the film was made in.
  
  This is a difficult review to write though. This movie is flawed, but do you rate it based on its obvious film making flaws, or the merits of a story that needed to be told? I think in the end you have to go with the story. The story is basic, simple and timeless, don't judge a book by it's cover, and don't care what the rest of the world thinks. For that, and its place in cinematic history, it deserves 4 stars.
  
  Sadly, the DVD though only gets 2 stars. It does feature a gorgeous transfer of the film, and does offer both widescreen and full screen versions. However, the lone extra is the original theatrical trailer. Certainly there must have been something they could have included in the form of a commentary track for one of AFI's Top 100 Films Of The 20th Century. A sad, little trailer is all it gets? Pathetic.
  
  On a side note, this is also a sad movie to watch as you know Spencer Tracy passed away only 17 days after filming completed. You can also see the early signs of Katherine Hepburn beginning to show signs of trembling that would later be so well known. It was a fine film for both noteworthy actors.
  
  Four stars for the film
  Two stars for the DVD
  
  

• Powerful Drama

  
  By A1GN8UJIZLCA59 on 2003-01-28
  Guess Who's Coming To Dinner was a ground breaking film upon its release in 1967. The story revolves around a liberal San Francisco couple whose twenty-three year old daughter comes home from a trip to Hawaii and surprises them by announcing she's engaged to an older man who also happens to be black. The couple, Matt & Christina Drayton, is played by screen legends Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Sidney Poitier, Dr. John Prentice, is the fiancé and Katharine Houghton, Joey Drayton, (who is Ms. Hepburn's niece) is their daughter. Matt & Christina are obviously shaken by the news and concerned about the situation. It is not because they are prejudice against minorities as their daughter is marrying a black man, but it is against the struggles she will face in such a relationship. Also, the doctor has put it to them that if they do not approve and give their blessings, he will call the marriage off. They have less than twenty-four hours to make their decision and they struggle with it, especially Matt. He is a crusading newspaper publisher who has championed liberal causes all his life, but faced with this situation, his beliefs are shaken to their core. Throughout the day they get council from their best friend, Monsignor Ryan (a superb Cecil Kellaway, who provides them with guidance and a voice of reason. Joey invites John's parents (Roy Glenn & Beah Richards) up from Los Angeles to dinner. Upon finding out Joey is white his parents voice their displeasure with the situation as well. When the two sets of parents get together, the mothers agree that they will support their children because they love them, but the fathers take an opposing view. Mr. Poitier gives a powerful and forceful retribution to his father about the state of black men in the current day and it shows why he is such a brilliant actor. In the end, Matt gives an impassioned speech to John & Joey about the struggles they will face and the unkindness that will be heaped on them, but that if they truly love each they will survive. Director Stanley Kramer does a brilliant job of making the film poignant yet not sappy. The cast are all brilliant and Ms. Hepburn would end up taking home her second Best Actress Oscar (after a thirty-four span from her first for Morning Glory in 1933) and the film won a second Oscar for William Rose for his screenplay. The film is definitely dated as interracial marriages are not as shocking as they were at the time and interracial couples have been the basis of countless films since then. The film is still powerful, because prejudices still exist in this country and the quandary one has when they have their beliefs tested is all too real. Mr. Tracy was gravelly ill at the time and it turned out that this would be his final film. He died two weeks after its completion, but he was posthumous given his final Academy Award Best Actor nomination and he delivered a powerful and lasting reminder of why he was one of the greatest actors in film history.
  
  

• AFI Top 100? Lets take a closer look:

  
  By A3JXOXKWOIETIY on 2003-03-27
  Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is the 1967 Sidney Poitier film about interracial marriage that made the AFI Top 100 list. So why the mediocre rating by this reviewer and many others? I mean we have the great Sidney Poitier, as well as Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. We have the decent director Stanley Kramer (who did On the Beach), we have the great era of the 1960s and we have a controversial theme. Well the key to the mediocrity lies in a very weak script by William Rose that doesn't ring true in many ways.

  John Prentice (Poitier) wants to marry Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton) and all hell breaks loose between the parents (Tracy, Hepburn, Beah Richards, and Roy Glenn). Problem is the script tries to be politically correct while ignoring any semblance of reality or non-nerdness (to coin a word).

  For example: a 2-faced employee wishes the couple well with whispering asides to Hepburn (in a WAY over the top cartoonish manner for both the well wishes and the asides). Joey says "Mom, she was well, RUDE!" actually she wasn't rude at all, she was 2-faced...big difference lost on the writer. And to get the lady out of their collective hair Hepburn gives her $5000.00. Not much of a punishment for being 2-faced.

  Then we get this wacky priest who drinks, sings "We can Work it Out" in the most pretentiously hip unhip touch of the film, and thinks its funny that Mr. Liberal (Tracy) has such a problem with the marriage. As far as Poitier's speech to his father, "You think of yourself as a black man, I think of myself as a man", I have this to say: I'm sure men have thought that, but I doubt they ever said it, i.e. it came out of the writer, not out of reality. And I have no idea why they left that scene in where Tracy rams a black guy's car and the guy yells "There oughta be a law!" It didn't make sense, it didn't fit into the film, and I suppose it was just an ill-concieved joke by the writer.

  And Tracy's speech at the end is supposed to be so touching, and it reduces Hepburn to tears...but really it's big on schmaltz and low on substance. This film is TV movie quality and made it into the AFI Top 100; hey AFI, ever hear of this other Poitier film from 1967...a little film called In the Heat of the Night? Such is my BIG GRIPE. How could this film make it while one of the best films of the decade doesn't? Answer: Politics. This one was about subtle middle class racism, that one was about blatant Southern racism. Well all I can say is see both films and YOU decide.
  
  

• A Classic: A Film To Watch In A College Class

  
  By A1JUYF5D6TFFHB on 2005-09-26
  This 1967 Oscar winner ought to be viewed in high schools or colleges, particularly in Humanities departments and Social Studies. This is definately a lesson in Human Rights that can easily be appreciated by both whites and blacks or any people for that matter and can even be seen in class while learning about the Civil Rights Movement, considering that this film was released at a time when the Civil Rights was at its peak and about to take a different direction after the death of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. 1967 was a difficult time, there were riots concerning racism as well as the Vietnam War. In this film, the accomplished Sidney Poitier plays Doctor John Wade Prentice, who falls madly in love with Joanna Drayton, played by the beautiful Katherine Houghton, who was related by blood to Katherine Hepburn - I think she was a niece or something. The two are clearly in love but are about to face hardships as young adults in a world that has not yet embraced multi-racial marriages. This premise is, of course, very antiquated, since we are living in 2005 and multi-racial families are very common. However, even now there are racist attitudes as well as class conflict and watching such a moving film as this one, which ultimately about the power of love conquering over opposition and ignorance, is benefitial even to this day. This film was originally a play and it is a film that captures the spirit of its time, in much the same way that Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin In the Sun" did in 1959. Outstanding performances by all the principal actors, but the real winner here is the veteran actor Spencer Tracey. This was his final film. He died shortly after the release of this film. His final monologue at the end of the film is the stuff of great actors that come along very rarely.
  
  Sidney Poitier holds his own next to Spence Tracey, using his usual dramatic flair and supreme dignity. However, it is very much debatable whether or not the fact he is a doctor makes the film significant. If he were of the working poor class, would the parents really put up more of a fight to seperate the couple ? Social status is not the issue in this film at all, since Dr Prentice's family is of the same class as Joanna Drayton's family. Despite this, it is still a fine film with moving moments. The music at the end "Thats' the glory of Love" is very nostalgic of 50's jingles and is super sweet to hear. This is a remarkably touching, very human story. Katherine Hepburn won an Oscar for this film, though when compared to her other work, this role is very bland. She is basically the supportive, understanding mother. She employs no pretensions, no affected dialogue and is herself throughout the film, however, and we are lead to believe that if her own daughter decided to marry a black man or a Native American man for that matter, she'd be alright with it. Hepburn, despite her classiness and patrician facade, was a very down-to-earth woman. But while I love her in this film, I still don't think it was a performance worthy of an Oscar when it should have gone to either Spencer Tracey or Sidney Poitier, who really carry most of the film. Watch closely. Tracey and Poitier are each other in a different skin color is all. Katherine Houghton is not doing anything special, though she is very definative of the preppy, high-class girls of the 50's. This film is radically different when you compare it to more "modern" less 50'ish films of the time like The Graduate, which came out around this time, Rosemary's Baby with its haunting notion of an absence of God and triumphant Satan, or the futuristic abstract Kubrick film 2001 A Space Odyssey. This film is still good, however, a lesson in loving one another as equals, irregardless of skin color, class (even if its not an issue in this particular film) political affiliation or religious differences. It's a very great film with powerful themes of love.
  
  

• It's not TOO bad - for 1967

  
  By A1IOM171PPQ2U8 on 2000-04-20
  I personally find this film engaging simply because it almost seems to satirize the liberals of the 60's - the black and white issue in the film should really be secondary, yet Tracy and Hepburn are so wrapped up in the race jargon, they don't even seem to care that their (rather dimwitted) daughter is marrying a man quite a bit older than she (and what exactly does Poitier's character see in her, anyway?). In 1967, granted, I'm sure this film went over better with critics, but today its message is quite tepid, simply because the relationship between Poitier and Houghton's characters is so weak and because there are so many "poignant" scenes (between Hepburn and Richards, between Tracy and Poitier, between Poitier and Glenn) that seem to exist merely to wring the sympathy out of the audience. On the plus side - it's enjoyable to see Hepburn and Tracy in literally ANYTHING - and knowing how they actually felt about one another in real life, the speech Tracy makes at the end of the film takes on an added irony (no WONDER Hepburn can never bring herself to watch this film). I recommend it to be viewed as a time capsule of sorts showing how far we've come in only 35 years (you might find yourself chuckling a bit as the "liberal" parents talk about their daughter wanting to marry a "negro"). And as a grammarian of sorts, I have to ask . . why is there a question mark at the end of the title?
  
  
• Watch it for Spence.
  By A3RSXCXWDV3BIP on 2002-01-10
  "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is a ham-handed propaganda piece salvaged only by the presence of Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The plot (and I'm going to give it all away, so don't read if you don't want to know) centers around a young girl, Joey, and her fiance, played by Sidney Poitier. After a courtship of only ten days, they are engaged and will shortly marry. Joey takes her intended to meet her parents (Hepburn and Tracy), and the film centers about their reaction, over the course of an afternoon, to their daughter's engagment to a black man.

  It's a typical setup for a "message" film: you know that at the end, everyone will embrace racial tolerance, and all will be well. It's a fine premise, and the pity is that the writer and director managed to pull it off so poorly even with such a superb ensemble of actors. The film is populated with stereotypes. Hepburn is the patrician but understanding mother. Tracy is the FDR liberal (we know this because he keeps a huge portrait of FDR on his desk) who must now take the final step and face his prejudices -- a 1967 metaphor for LBJ's self-assumed "completion" of the New Deal, perhaps? Tilly, the black maid, is ornery and suspicious (reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara's Mammy, she yells at Poitier for being an "nigger" who "doesn't know his place"). All the young people (including the vapid Joey) are portrayed as dancing, progressive, free-lovin' free spirits, talking breezily about their cohabitations and sleepovers. I know it's set in San Francisco, but the hipster hipness makes one ache. Poitier's mother is a longsuffering, saintly woman; his father is a ridiculous foil who exists mostly so Poitier can make a tedious speech about how the "young generation" needs the "old generation" to "get off our backs!" (Given that Poitier is playing a 37-year old man, this speech serves mostly to make one laugh.) Most egregiously of all (and most damaging to the film's premise), Poitier plays anything but an average Joe: instead, he's a world-famous physician who cured thousands in the Third World and regularly jets between Geneva and New York. This conceit alone would have fatally undercut the dramatic tension in the parents' reactions (how much better would it have been had Poitier been a construction worker, or a typist); paired with the predictable and two-dimensional characters, it annihilates it.

  In the end, then, the film's premise is swamped with its static characters and preachy dialogue. Then there's the question of plot plausibility. As my fiancee pointed out, "They're all focusing on her marrying a black man. Why doesn't anyone care about the real problem? She got engaged in ten days!" Exactly.

  Now, there are some reasons to watch this movie. Those reasons are Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Despite being saddled with bad writing and little to do, Tracy in particular manages to shine forth in his last film. The expressions on this old man's face are priceless, and he evokes what little emotional reaction can be drawn from this movie in his evident love for his wife and daughter. Even his tedious speech at the end (in which he declares that "what we feel" is more important than "what we think") there is a gem wherein he reminisces about how his wife made him feel when he was young. The viewer knows that he is speaking directly to Hepburn as Hepburn: priceless and moving. Hepburn herself has considerably less to do, but she is allowed a delicious scene of calculated (if just) brutality early in the film. The scene wherein they go to get ice cream, and Tracy is forced to interact with young people who are alternately condescending, apathetic, or hostile, is a moving cameo of an America that was not changing for the better. It is also an perhaps-unintentional farewell to a particular type of film star, and a particular type of film.

  In short, watch this because you want to see Spencer Tracy's last movie. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy predictable preaching.
  
  

• Race Relations Treatment Not So Dated and Still Entertaining in Tracy Farewell
  By A13E0ARAXI6KJW on 2005-08-28
  Somehow this 1967 film classic still works perhaps because it's not as dated as one would hope it would be. I was motivated to see this film for the umpteenth time since I recently saw the rather toothless partial remake, "Guess Who" with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher. The plot is fairly low-key taking place mostly in the upscale San Francisco home of Matt and Christina Drayton, a crusading liberal newspaper publisher and his art gallery-owning wife. That's the set-up for their daughter Joey's surprise return from her vacation in Hawaii with an unexpected fiancee in tow.
  
  The fact that the Draytons are white and the fiancee, John Wade Prentice, is black provides the focus of the plot, but make no mistake that the casting of screen legends Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as the Draytons and Sidney Poitier - then one of the most popular stars - as Prentice alters the reality of the situation considerably. There are also several plot contrivances that seem suitable for this story but not in real-life, for instance, the increasingly imminent departure of the young couple to Geneva, Prentice's statement to the Draytons that a marriage will not happen without their approval, Joey's constant impulsiveness and her seemingly cavalier attitude toward the sensitivities of others.
  
  Yet what continues to be surprising is that the film's glamorization of interracial romance among the wealthy does not detract from its sheer entertainment value. Despite the seriousness of the subject, especially at the height of the civil rights movement, director Stanley Kramer - in his typically socially conscious mode - and screenwriter William Rose have fashioned mostly a drawing room comedy that turns heavier and more significant with the last dramatic scenes.
  
  Because this is more an ensemble piece, it barely feels like a Tracy-Hepburn film, especially since they look very settled as a long-ago married couple. They do have a few scenes together where you can strongly feel the natural onscreen rapport that had lasted for 25 years - the Oregon boysenberry scene, the walk through their patio as she cuts the flowers, the lasting stare between them at the end. In his last film finished a little over two weeks before his death, Tracy looks far older than his 67 years but still does masterful work as Drayton, a man who unexpectedly finds himself at odds with his values with his daughter's sudden announcement. His famous climactic monologue is the film's understandable high point, but he also does wonders listening to everyone else's thoughts and opinions.
  
  Hepburn imbues her trademark independent spirit in what seems to be an observational role. Considering she was in-between her morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and her vengeful Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter", her seemingly passive role here hardly seems worthy of her time except for the way she looks at Tracy or Katharine Houghton (her real-life niece) or in a couple of meaty confrontation scenes - the first with her bigoted gallery manager whom she tells with contained fury to "get permanently lost" and the second an ultimatum in the bathroom to Matt should he not condone the marriage.
  
  Poitier seems comfortable portraying an incredibly accomplished man but really does not catch dramatic fire until the last half-hour when he confronts his own father about his feelings. Houghton, relentlessly perky to the point of strangulation, has a relatively thankless role as Joey as she is the catalyst for the plot machinations but has no scene which allows her character to respond verbally to the groundswell of problems the situation has caused for those around her. This may have been intentional, but it creates an odd, somewhat selfish imbalance to her character.
  
  Beah Richards has a few quietly powerful moments as Prentice's mother, who accuses Drayton rather vicariously of forgetting what it's like to be in love. As her retired postal carrier husband, Roy S. Glenn provides bluster to his role, but his character is given short shrift especially in his non-response to Poitier's memorable tirade near the end. Not all the roles are noteworthy though - Cecil Kellaway seems to have walked in from a Bing Crosby movie as the wise, twinkly Monsignor Ryan, and Isabel Sanford from a sitcom set as the Draytons' sassy maid Tillie. The DVD has a clean print of the film but only a trailer as an extra.
  
  
• Even with its faults, it's still a good watch
  By AXHMUN6GC0WEH on 2000-10-31
  A white, upper-middle class liberal couple's beliefs are tested when their daughter comes home from Hawaii and announces her engagement to a black man, one that is much older than she is and one she had only known for nearly two weeks, I might add. However, his age and the amount of time between them meeting to being engaged never even seemed to be a factor. Obviously, race was the ONLY factor.
  
  I liked this movie, but I found a couple of things in the plot to be quite unbelievable...like the Poitier character, who is a doctor (would have been more interesting if he was an average middle class guy who was a factory foreman or a mailman, like his father - that way you get not only a clash with race, but also with status) and his white fiancee didn't really seem to have any kind of rapport. If these two were in love, maybe I missed something, because it didn't show. Plus the girl, who can't really act, seems to be TOO naive not to see that her marrying a black man would cause some controversy. I can't believe the writers made her that dumb. I guess they were trying to make her so idealistic that her man's race wasn't even a factor, so I can kind of understand what they were going for. But other than that, the performances in this film are great. The speeches that Beah Richards and Spencer Tracy give at the end is priceless, and watching Katherine Hepburn watch HIM is too much. This was Tracy's final film before his death, so if you're a fan of his work, I suggest that you see it. This movie, even though it was made in 1967 when interracial couples had a rougher time of it, does make you think, though...how would you feel if it were YOUR son or daughter in this same position? Just how liberal are you?
  
  
• Worth a watch
  By A38ZTF3PTQISH0 on 2000-11-03
  While this movie seems to drag a bit in the middle section, I still reccommend it. Why? I'll tell you.

  This movie above all else, means well. The filmmakers are simply trying to say what they believe. This film is plain and simple, a soapbox. Nothing wrong with that.

  The performances are another reason to watch this movie. Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn are worth watching in anything. Poiter doesn't give a performance quite up to par for him, but it is satisfactory. Poiter's parents are also great.

  There are some spectacular moments here. Great monologue by Tracy at the end makes the entire film worth watching. I don't cry about a film or book or tv show. I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually cried over a piece of mass media. Tears came to my eyes during this wonderful speech. They didn't break and run, but they were there.

  The film is sightly weighted down by a plodding midsection, but on retrospect I think it might have been made that way on purpose. Will there ever come a time when people of different color can live together in harmony? I think so. To get to that place, however, we will have to go through a process that parallels this film: long, arduous and drawn out periods, punctuated by moments of sheer genius and if we are lucky, at the end light will dawn.
  
  

• It Just Keeps Getting Better ...!
  By on 1999-07-13
  When I first saw this movie in 1967I was a 60's teenager at full throttle. I loved everything about it. I was especially impressed with Mr. Poitier's sterling and graceful portrayal of a man struggling between two worlds ... and I don't mean just black and white. His speech to his father, ("You see yourself as a colored man ... and I see myself as a man"), remains one of my favorite scenes in any movie of any genre. Thirty-plus years later this is still one of my favorite movies, although my understanding and appreciation of the pivotal relationships have matured. Each time I watch it I either see or hear something new, or gain new insight into its messages. The struggles and dilemmas are just as real and fresh today as they were in 1967 ... and just as important. The love in each relationship just as beautiful and touching.If you love Hepburn and Tracy at their best ... this one is for you. If you love Poitier's edge and grace ... this one is for you. If you love to see people of color portrayed as people of value and substance ... this one is for you. If you love intellectual romantic comedies ... this one is for you. If you love important movies with enduring social messages ... this one is for you. You must see this movie!
  
  
• Dated, 60's Period Piece
  By A1GHBYDI7YPMR3 on 2002-01-02
  I checked this out thinking it would be quite interesting, and it was at least ok. The female lead, though, came across as more of a 12 year old brat than an adult, and the Poitier character wasn't quite the mature individual his character makes him out to be.

  The movie came down to Spencer Tracy saying it doesn't matter what anyone thinks, but what you feel. Poitier yells at his dad that his dad's whole ... generation has to get off their backs and that he doesn't owe his father anything. If memory serves he even says it would be good for his dad's generation to die off. The female lead's friends are living together and think it odd that two people "in love" shouldn't be together.

  Poitier's mother in this movie seems to think that the fathers are against the marriage simply because they've forgotten what it means to love a woman.

  In short the acting is good but the story is really really weak in my opinion. I think there's a lot more they could have done with it.
  
  

• Yes, Dated and Strained...
  By A2W2MQQBVHZZAP on 2003-01-15
  Still a nice movie. However, I agree with others who expressed finding the making of the Prentiss character a "super spade" in order to be worthy of a ditzy, White girl with no job, very telling about the perceived status of Blacks and Whites in America. Also, the director must not have hung around any Black folks. If he did, that whole "burnt out old man" speech wouldn't have been given by Prentiss' mom. I don't know of too many Black mothers NOW who'd be overjoyed over their son bringing home a White girl. In fact, I can see Mrs. Prentiss shaking her head while thinking, "ALL the educated Black women out there looking for a husband, and you bring home THIS!" Also, the speech between the doctor and his dad seems to be beating around the bush. Mind you, this movie was released during a time when Black men dealt with often DEADLY consequences of fraternizing, even slightly, with White women. But the father does not refer to this at all. I'm sure ANY Black father of the time would be fearing for his son's PHYSICAL safety over a union with a White woman. Instead, Prentiss Sr. comes across as an ancient anachronism.
  
  
• A dinner I don't mind missing...
  By A1O74QMW9N9CZB on 2003-08-11
  Maybe it's a case of needing to be there but I hated this movie! Yes...HATED! What a waste of my time.

  The token Hollywood Negro of the time chides his father with his -blah! blah! "I am a black man speech". Whatever. Does being a doctor give him a free pass against the reality of race? This movie assumes so.

  Maybe it's the time period but this movie tried too hard.
  I guess it was supposed to be an enlightening and daring look at inter-racial mating with the "correct" type of Negroe male hooking up with a white girl. Oh My!

  It was nauseating. It is celebration of false social pretense and bogus racial harmony.

  I realize Mr. Poiter is the sacred cow of "black" acting. I have never enjoyed any of his work. He always comes across as a long suffering yet strangely noble Negroe in every role. It's an Uncle Tom has gone to Hollywood type of display.
  
  

• Who's says movies don't teach you anything?
  By A3C6CZC2JP67VK on 2006-08-22
  `Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' is one true cinematic treasure. This film is wonderful because it was made by one of Hollywood's greatest duos, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. I doubt audiences back then would respond to this if it wasn't for the duo. Although it would not shock me if people then would be thinking Hollywood had finally lost its edge with this one. It was a keen decision to have Kate and Spencer be the leads because in doing so they were assuring not only box-office draw -- people would be returning to watch their favorite unmarried couple bicker, lovingly, yet again -- but a strong statement.
  
  This film was made while Spencer Tracy was dying. Spencer had to put his entire salary in escrow in order for the film company to allow him to do the film. So why did Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy agree to do this film, without immediate payment? Because it's a film about forbidden love, it's a film about loving someone no matter what society thinks, or what the rules are. This is something Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn knew a great deal about. Potier of course turns in a great performance, impeccable as always. Watch for Isabel Sanford, ("The Jefferson's") particularly the one memorable scene where she explains to Potier's character just what "black power" really is. Cecil Kellaway sparkles as Monsignor Ryan, and Beah Richards and Roy Glenn, as the parents to Potier's character, mirror Hepburn and Tracy. Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece), as Johanna Drayton, also done well but her inexperience is very apparent due to the heavyweight cast.
  What makes this film outstanding is, by the end of the film you realize, Kate and Spencer are not even acting they are relaying their feelings about each other, through the film. Once you catch that, the drama of the final few scenes is just unparalleled and Spencer's final speech, about his love for Kate (Christina), can drive even the most twisted soul to tears.
  
  A few things to catch in this film, watch Kate's face when Spencer recites the line, 'screw what the rest of the world thinks about your love'...those are real tears. Watch Spencer Tracey as he paces back and forth on the terrace near the end of the film. He realizes he is about to begin one of the last scenes he will ever film. He's line 'well I'll be a son of a bitch'...is more a realization he's about to make his last grandstand on the big screen, in his entire career.
  
  There is so much real honest-to-god acting talent concentrated in this movie, it. It's such a treat to watch these legendary actors at work. I highly recommend it.
  
  
  
  
• Oh So Sincere, Oh So Bad!
  By A1458CV031RUVE on 2007-03-19
  Stanley Kramer was a competent filmmaker who had a progressive, liberal
  point of view, often way before it was fashionable, on almost all social issues. It's hard to look at some of his films today without groaning, but they are all well meaning, if often way past gooey. Except for "Judgement At Nuremberg" and maybe "Inherit the Wind", all of them seem badly dated. The worst of the lot, "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is almost unwatchable.
  
  The screenplay by Leonard Rose (which,unbelivably, won an Academy Award!)seems out of step even for the 60's. The plot is ludicrous and patronizing;the biracial couple is so perfect one would think they landed from another planet. Did Mr. Poitier HAVE to be a doctor? Why not president? There is never the slightest doubt as to what is going to happen next in this film. All of the characters are stock, the storyline totally predictable and banal. For those suffering from A.D.D., poor Spencer Tracy gives a nice, long, sweet speech at the end which summarizes, verbatim, everything you've just had to suffer through the past hour and a half.
  
  The acting, except for Beah Richards, is uniformly bad (though with this story no one,not even Mr. Tracy, has a chance to do anything other than be cute).Ms. Houghten was pretty but talently challenged.Ms. Hepburn is especially dreadful in what is actually a rather small part. This was the start of the teary eyes,quivering chin (I am NOT referring to her neurological disorder!), "Oh,I KNOW you all love me!" phase of her career. Her eyes are very slanty in this film and one can see the scars of a recent face lift when she is seen in profile. Her close ups are all sort of hazy; kind of like Lucille Ball in "Mame". Ms. Hepburn always seemed strong and proud and unbeatable when she was younger, or at least until, "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner". Athough always somewhat actressy and prone to posing, she was always smart and likable and sometimes very effective, especially in comedies. I don't know why she chose to go down the saccharine path as she got older.
  
  It's very sad that Mr. Tracy (the most spendid and natural screen actor of his time) had to end his distinguished career in this embarrassing pile of glop. I immediately watched "Woman of the Year" and "Adam's Rib"
  after viewing "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" so I would remember how wonderful almost all of the other Tracy/Hepburn movies were.
  
  
  
• You Can't Help But Like This Movie
  By A14OG5MAN6RAUF on 2000-02-03
  A wonderful film about a subject that is still all too controversial today. Some of the earnest upper middle class white liberal talk sounds sort of silly now, but the sentiment is right on and the acting (at least Hepburn and Tracy) is superb. Sidney Poitier grimaces and emotes a bit too much and luckily Katharine Houghton never really went on to anything else, but other than that, a good supporting cast. Little bits of silly '60's camp (the go-go dancing delivery boy) make for unexpected fun.
  
  
• Shallow, foolish, contrived
  By on 1999-11-19
  Silly plot played out in cliches. Preachy and moralistic in a pre-cursor to 90's facile political correctness. A waste of Hepburn and Tracy. Right in line with Poitier's career.
  
  
• A good message movie because it still has some relevance.
  By A3CFT5LHFCB46K on 2001-12-02
  When it was made it 1967, "Guess Who`s Coming to Dinner" reflected upon the changing times in America. African-Americans were protected by the law, but still were not respected by everyone, as Stanley Kramer showed in this movie about a debate between two families over an inter-racial marriage. His film is a message that, in such a case, it shouldn't matter as to what color they are but as to how much they love another.

  While an overall good movie, some of its ideas have dated. First off, Sidney Poitier's character, in order to be worthy of the white girl (Katharine Houghton) has to be wealthy and a doctor who happens to work in Hawaii. Second, the subject of interracial marriage, while still not accepted by some, has become somewhat common in our society. If such a movie were made nowadays, it would probably deal with the subject of homosexual marriage.

  Spencer Tracy is dominant as usual in this picture. For one thing, he gets reunited with co-star Katharine Hepburn for the first time since the late `50's. And he is in his first major film in about 3 or 4 years. Finally, he gives everything he has because he didn't have much left to live. Ill during the production, he died just days after completion. Both Tracy and Hepburn got Oscar nominations, with Kate emerging victorious (Though some might say voters felt sympathetic for her following Spence's loss). It is surprising that Poitier, who had a tremendous year in '67 (In addition to this, there was Best Picture winner "In The Heat of the Night") was not nominated at all for this or any other film that year. While I can't compare it to his other work (Since I haven't seen any other of his movies), I think he was very good in the role.
  
  "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", while a bit aged, is still recommended watching. Not just to see how our ideals have changed since it was first released, but because some themes shown here may still have relevance (Homosexual and interracial marriage can be compared and both are subjects much debated about). Watch it also for Spencer Tracy, who is in a moving moment you could easily miss if you don't know its importance. It is during the last scene. Spence is giving a speech about why Houghton and Poitier should get married. The camera takes a look at Hepburn's face. She is misty eyed, not just because of the words he is saying, but because she knew this would be Tracy's last film and thus the last time she would be able to star with him. Now the usage of the song "The Story of Love" seems most fitting...
  
  

• An All-time Classic
  By A2JGZACQ7YB7R8 on 2003-02-04
  Aside from calmly, reasonably confronting a social taboo of the '60s -- racially mixed marriages -- in a thoughtful, touching manner, this film features career-high performances from several of Hollywood's finest. Spencer Tracy is absolutely brilliant in his final screen appearance as the avowed liberal newspaper publisher Matt Drayton, who, along with his idealistic wife (a role that earned Katherine Hepburn her second Best Actress Oscar) learns that their barely-20-year-old daughter is planning to elope with a black physician (played with cool passion by Sidney Poitier). The story evolves from Poitier's confidence in the two shocked parents that, without their full approval, the marriage will not go on -- and there are only hours to decide. Add his parents to the mix, and as the list of dinner guests grows so does the tension. Aside from the marvelous script, memorable performances and outstanding direction, photography and music there is a chemistry in the mix that truly creates an energy greater than the sum of its parts -- and when the parts are this good, the result is a film for the ages that goes straight to the heart of themes like love, passion, prejudice and family conflict. In the end love does conquor all in Tracey's powerful final speech, made more poignant by a visibly moved and misty Hepburn -- perhaps cognizant that she was witnessing the final curtain call of a great actor. This is the magic Hollywood is capable of, a movie that re-affirms one's faith in the ideals of love and equality, and certainly belongs in every collection.
  
  
• Perfect
  By A3FLJFD4JH4WIT on 2003-11-20
  Stanley Kramer's masterpiece joins two perfect characters -- he's an incredibly accomplished doctor with impeccable manners and a solid family, and she's a gorgeous, charming and idealistic daughter of a newspaper magnate. The only thing that could possibly get in the way of this couple's marraige is the difference in their skin color.

  The script is funny and first rate, and the hall of fame cast works together beautifully. Like Lubitsch's Ninotscka, the situations at times seem a bit dated, but that just adds to charm of the movie.
  
  

• An older person's perspective....
  By A1XPFFBT4MEBZE on 2004-09-13
  I saw this movie in the theatre the week it was released. From a perspective of nearly 40 years later, I believe it still holds up.

  There is much evidence to show that it was not a realistic portrayal of the subject matter, even in the late sixties, and that it is even less recognisable now. But Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is not documentary, or even that later invention; docudrama. It is theatre, and in the theatre, characters are given a point of view, a goal, and obstacles.( Notice that reality is not a prerequisite for any of these.)

  So given that we are watching art, what can we say about it? Well we can say that this film contains some of the strongest performances ever committed to celuloid; Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier. Katherine Houghton sings more softly for she carries the torch for youth and innocence (supposedly representing the generation that does away with racism - from 40 years on how we wish that THAT at least were true!)

  But even if you think you know the story, and you think there's no reason to see it because it is so dated, BUY THIS DISC and add it to your collection for the performance of a lifetime: Beah Richards as Mrs. Prentice (Sidney's mom) will, in the middle of a movie designed to make you think, reach right into the center of your being and break your heart, just as her's is breaking. Her scenes bring this movie to a higher level - high and deserved praise seeing as Tracy and Hepburn set the bar.

  It wasn't meant to cure the evil. It, in truth, hardly acknowledges the evil of racism (perhaps the most valid criticism that can be made) but it did, in it's time, a miraculous thing: it answered the question "Is it wrong for men and women of different races to marry?" -

  the answer, simply,: "No."
  
  

• Excellent thought-provoking film
  By A2C6FDGST0G4K7 on 2004-10-21
  I watched this film last night and was blown away by it. Evidently there are many caricatures that seem superfluous to the plot - the 'obviously Black cook/nanny,' the sexualised Black help, the PC speech by Mrs Drayton to her collegue and the drunken Irish Monseigneur.
  
  BUT all that aside, this film provides many avenues for critical thought that are still relevant today. This film not only explored race relations(the most obvious visible challenge) but also issues about age, about marriage and about the aesthetic ideal. Would you be happy to let your (very optimistic and somewhat naive) 23 year-old marry a man 15 years her senior after an 11 day holiday? Does Joey merit becoming his wife when she is not as accomplished as John so clearly is?
  
  There is also the tension between what was the liberal progressive tune in that film with the conservative line when Joey says 'When I marry him, I will be important too.' That's hardly a progressive feminist stance is it? She clearly feels that her personality can be and should be subsumed in his achievements. Neither is the position that the two mothers take. They defer to their husbands' disapproval of the marriage.
  
  What I found most interesting was how relevant the issue of race still is for many people in the audience. While we would all like to hail 2004 as a different era in terms of race (and in someways it is) are inter-racial marriages so easily accepted? I think people too easily forget the difficulties many couples face TODAY and the hurdles have to negotiate among their own communities and across their spouses'.
  
  I think this is a film worth watching, if only to see far away we are now, today, from the idealised picture of liberalism that was painted then in the 1960's.
  
  
  
  
  
• That's The Story Of Love
  By AHJ185Q3PPH5F on 2007-08-20
  As a nationally published author, I understand that quality is lacking in today's artistic efforts. Most advocate the BIG-BANG Theory, full of sound and fury, but the significance of things weighs little on the minds of many.
  
  As a study to my novel THERE'S ALWAYS A REASON, I wanted to examine the twists and turns and depths of love as it pertained to the "perfectly imperfect" union of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. For that reason, I decided to watch ALL THEIR FILMS film in sequence, and study their unique chemistry. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, their last effort made with a "race against time" mindset due to Spencer Tracy's health, blew me away with its depth.
  
  The story, obvious to us all after almost forty years, was the first of its kind to tackle interracial relations. Katherine Houghton sparkled as the lively optimistic Joey Drayton. Her innocence infectious, her tenacity as well as energy and understated strength illuminated the screen. Young love oozed from her pores.
  
  As does Sidney Poitier. In a dramatic role as a Joey's successful black beau, I couldn't help think of the tension, plus relationship issues I encountered some twenty years after this project was made when dating a white woman, as well as the negative looks given by people six years into the twenty-first century, like it's still taboo. Portraying his role with great intensity, his worthy performance is one of his very best. That confrontational scene with Roy Glenn was breathtaking in its power.
  
  Supporting efforts by Isabel Sanford (The Jefferson's Fame) and Beau Richards (That passionate, "What Happens When Men Grow Old" speech was the perfect set-up for...) were astoundingly exceptional in their range. Sanford, playing the cynical maid, was humorous in her attack mode, while Richards nearly steals the show in the too few minutes she graced the scene.
  
  I cannot begin to describe what I felt, watching Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in their roles as Christina and Matt Drayton. Surrealism at its finest, truth met fiction in an emotional way. From Spencer's gaze of love in 1942's WOMAN OF THE YEAR after he saw Kate fiddling with her stockings to the very last scene of his life, you could feel the love and devotion between the two. That last look into Kate's teary eyes brought the house down. Remember when they were both in the car, at the ice cream parlor, and she uttered the lines which referred to her taking care of him. If You Read 'An Affair To Remember", You'll see the validity in the statement.
  
  I can only imagine the emotions that ran through both of them, as they knew their imperfect yet perfect relationship was drawing to a close. Their love for each other was evident throughout, and, in this viewers mind, stole the movie. That climatic speech Spencer Tracy gave at movies end moved me to tears. I can understand why Katherine said that she could never watch that movie - for it was a public goodbye. The sand in the hourglass near empty: twelve days after the final take, he was gone. That speech, done in one take was a not only the close of an era of when actors really acted, but more so was a fitting tribute to their love: the only thing that mattered between Spence and Kate was what they felt, and how they felt for each other. That meant everything to those two, as well as all that witnessed their unique union.
  
  That indeed, is the story of love.
  
  
• Ahead of its time with insight, feelings and conflicts
  By on 1999-01-03
  Seeing this film for the first time, I appreciated the story from many viewpoints. Being part of an interracial relationship myself, I've struggled with the same "issues" with which these characters wrestle. It was interesting that over three decades ago these writers and actors were able to relay the feelings on both sides so straightforwardly.

  Though mixed couples are more widely accepted and prevalent today than in '67, the underlying resentment on both sides of the race card is still very much there. This can be quite painful epecially when a couple is busy with the average growing pains of the relationship itself and isn't caught up in society's prejudices.

  This movie helped bring all views to the table, exposing the internal conflicts that each side deals with and how they effectively resolve the issues.

  For anyone in or considering an interracial relationship, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is worth a watch.
  
  

• A movie with two personalities
  By A3RTKL9KB8KLID on 2000-09-08
  This was Tracy and Hepburn's last film together. He died shortly after completing it. The chemistry between the two of them was never more powerful or moving than in this film. They both knew this was his farewell performance, and it's hard to watch it without tears. And the love story, if you put your brain in neutral, is charming. Poitier gives a fine performance (has any actor, ever, given three more memorable performances in one calendar year than "In the Heat of the Night", "To Sir With Love", and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"?).

  So what's wrong with this film? Well, if you think about the issues realistically, this film is VERY dated. The airheaded daughter of a wealthy white couple comes home to introduce her fiance. He is the kind of prospective son-in-law whom any sane parents would go delirious over: a world-renowned doctor, a big wheel in the World Health Organization, dignified, educated, presumably financially comfortable. So why would anyone object?

  Because he's Black.

  The rest of the film is devoted to the debates between and within the two sets of parents about whether the marriage should take place. Generally the two mothers approve and the two fathers disapprove. Guess who wins?

  The idea that the filmmakers had to make the fiance so preposterously wonderful in order to make him seem even an acceptable match for this sawdust-brained rich girl seems completely laughable in the year 2000. Furthermore, why so much fuss over getting the parents to approve? Nowadays if the two of them wanted to get married, they would GET married - and the hell with their parents! For these reasons, the film has not aged well.

  If you can suspend your 21st-century attitudes toward love, race and marriage, then this film is charming. But suspending those attitudes isn't easy, even for a 53-year-old geezer like me.
  
  

• Yes, Dated and Strained...
  By A2W2MQQBVHZZAP on 2003-01-15
  Still a nice movie. However, I agree with others who expressed finding the making of the Prentiss character a "super spade" in order to be worthy of a ditzy, White girl with no job, very telling about the perceived status of Blacks and Whites in America. Also, the director must not have hung around any Black folks. If he did, that whole "burnt out old man" speech wouldn't have been given by Prentiss' mom. I don't know of too many Black mothers NOW who'd be overjoyed over their son bringing home a White girl. In fact, I can see Mrs. Prentiss shaking her head while thinking, "ALL the educated Black women out there looking for a husband, and you bring home THIS!" Also, the speech between the doctor and his dad seems to be beating around the bush. Mind you, this movie was released during a time when Black men dealt with often DEADLY consequences of fraternizing, even slightly, with White women. But the father does not refer to this at all. I'm sure ANY Black father of the time would be fearing for his son's PHYSICAL safety over a union with a White woman. Instead, Prentiss Sr. comes across as an ancient anachronism.
  
  
• "Not In This Country! Not In This Stinking World!" "They'll change this country! They'll change this stinking world!"
  By A129YBX5BVNW2 on 2007-08-14
  Sometimes a movie isn't a movie - sometimes it's more than that. And "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is one of those great moments in our troubled existence when a movie took on a real issue and became something more that entertainment, it became important, even a catalyst for change - change that's ongoing to this day.
  
  It starts very badly. A jet plane crosses the city sky to dated girly vocals and naff strings. The lyrics of "The Glory Of Love" waft out at us, "You've got to cry a little...die a little..." Oh God! Immediately you feel this is an overrated and fiercely dated Hollywood outing, and while it may have been groundbreaking then, it's cheesy now. And worse - it seems to be smug and knowing - the Tinsel Town hypocrites doing "brave", but in a typically sanitised and acceptable way.
  
  But then it improves almost immediately. Like a breath of fresh air, Katherine Houghton (niece of Hepburn) and an impossibly handsome and debonair Sidney Poiter float onto the screen beaming and hugging. Immediately they look the part - in love - and ready to take on the whole wide world and its crappy prejudices with a lump hammer. They're met by Virginia Christine, who plays Hilary St. George, assistant to Hepburn's character, Mrs. Drayton. She shiftily eyes the mixed couple and asks with her staunch steely white distaste, "Has something happened? Is anything wrong?" Haughton replies (too much in love to notice the meanness) "Something's happened! But it's right!"
  
  Actually, Houghton is one of the movie's secret weapons; her unfolding strength and joie-de-vie positively invigorating and constantly countering the pontificating of the elders. She, of course, represents young love, youth that doesn't give a fiddlers nadge about other people's opinions because it's empowered and alive. One such example is her conversation with Tilly, the family's black Maid, who's dead set against the union from the off. Haughton reasons. "You so wrong Tilly! You know I've always loved you - and you're just as black as he is! How could it possibly be right for me to love you - and yet be wrong for me to love him?" And on it goes - witty to dark and back again.
  
  Briefly, the story is this; Hepburn comes home to a surprise from her daughter - she's met a man ten days earlier and is deeply in love - or so she claims - but he's a Negro. Dad Tracy comes home too and he's not happy either - even dismissive, decision made too hastily, too much too soon, obvious problems ahead, what were they thinking?? Then Poitier's black parents arrive into town (beautifully played by a graceful Beah Richards and a forceful Roy E. Glenn Snr) and things get very awkward and then very heavy. And it's from here that the movie moves into true greatness with the screenplay by William Rose being one of the heroes of the hour (won the Oscar).
  
  Both parents make good argument. Roy E Glenn Snr. as Poitier's father informs his boy of some sobering facts - their marriage in 1967 is illegal in 17 States (and even now it's chilling to know that fact). Both parents try of course to browbeat their siblings into rethinking their positions, when it should be they, who need to do some "rethinking". But these are good fathers - and with rebuttals, good argument and applied intelligence, both begin to see the light. The scene where Poitier confronts his Dad about a son owing his pater nothing, about his Father's generation being dead weight because they're trapped in the clichés of old they won't try to break free from - is just breathtaking in its writing and scope - shockingly good!
  
  Then it gets better still. Both Beah Richards and Katharine Hepburn agree with the union; they know their men don't - so both try to reason with their opposite. But it's Beah's talk to Tracy (who listens) that swings it; she talks about men being old, becoming stale and then losing their passion and forgetting what it was like to be young and in love and needing somebody like they were the air. It's fantastically written and delivered with grace and poise (she was Oscar nominated). Then Tracy simply spends the next few minutes of screen time pacing about, looking out over the metropolis and thinking. Then he thinks and ruminates a little more. And then a revelation! "I'll be a son of a bitch!" He makes his way back into the house to gather all parties together in the same room to hear THE BIG SPEECH. And it's an absolute knockout! He recaps on each person and their viewpoint - good and bad. He looks at Beah Richards who chastised him - not with malice but with affection. He touches on her point of love diminishing over the years, "Old - yes! Burnt out - certainly! But I can tell you, the memories are still there - clear, intact, indestructible..."
  
  But there are things about the film that grate. For a movie that concerns itself so much with colour and equality, it's extraordinary that the black actors playing Poitier's parents didn't get equal billing with the principal four on the posters and subsequent artwork - despite both being Oscar-nominated! And why does any black person have to have the patriarchal nod from the senior white folks for their union to be ok anyway! But these are more reflections of the time the movie was made. It doesn't detract from it too much. This was a maverick film made with maverick actors in maverick times.
  
  On the 10th of June 1967, aged 67 and just two weeks after filming had finished (it was finally released in March 1968 just in time for Oscars), Spencer Tracy was at home and couldn't sleep. Hepburn was upstairs too - despite her real home being a short distance away. He made himself a tea, sat at the table and suffered a massive and fatal heart attack. His body hit the table but it was the cup that crashed to the floor. The drinking had finally done for him. In her memoirs she romantically wrote "I crouched down and took you up in my arms, dead. No life, no pulse...my dear, dear friend, gone." Together for 28 years in all but marriage, Hepburn was there truly "in sickness and in health..." loving him to the end - and when you return to the scene where they look at each other at the end of his speech (see below) - and you know this - you realise the acting between these two had stopped long ago - their devotion and respect and love for each other was real.
  
  Guess Whose Coming To Dinner is a movie you should own or return to soon. A reminder of when Hollywood genuinely touched you while occasionally touching on the real issues that affect us all to this day. (The title is dialogue between Tracy and his priest about race in the USA, Tracy first, then the priest).
  
  Let's finish with the words of the Mighty Spence before he looks at Katherine Hepburn:
  
  "...Because in the final analysis, it doesn't matter what we think of them. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel it for each other - and if it's half of what we felt - that's everything!"
  
  
• Please keep perspective!
  By A16IMRPEALMMJD on 2000-01-14
  Let us not forget that this film was exceptionally daring for the times. Anyone who knocks this film because the Pointier's character was wealthy and educated needs to keep in mind that in the 1960's, mixed marriages as a rule were not accepted regardless of the socioeconomic status of the man or woman. Besides, if Tracy's character had a "good reason", beyond race, to reject his daughter's choice in beaus, the impact would not have been so great. People could have rationalized the conflict as being something other than race.
  
  
• Classic Colour blind love story
  By A3T39Y56JZFT5W on 2000-02-01
  Forget the obvious. This story is from the mid 60s and the world was a different place then from today. This movie is strong and moving because of the flawless performances of Hepburn and Tracy, slowly realizing that their morality which they have taught their daughter from the beginning was making a mockery of them. The realization of their shallow lip-service to civil rights only comes through hard confrontation with the reality that they have nothing to do. Poitier's speach to his father "I don't owe you" adeptly sets the stage for Tracy's brilliant monolog. A must have classic.
  
  
• Not as affectual as was in '67, yet interesting to an extent
  By A9LJRWNQTUOR1 on 1999-11-30
  A hush-hush idea among blacks and whites then isn't as strong now, yet provides an OK perception of strength over adversity with Poitier (although not in his best role) excelling as a pretty believable African American doctor. Yet that Katherine Houghton who plays Poitier's bride-to-be is so stale, one-sided and unconvincing that she nearly ruins the film. Mediocre, but worth seeing if your interests include films on color differences.
  
  

• Lilies of the Field
• To Sir, With Love
• A Patch of Blue
• In the Heat of the Night
• A Raisin in the Sun