by Julian Spivey
Stanley Kramer’s 1967 film “Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner” was one of the most controversial and socially important films of the 1960s.
The ‘60s were the decade of the Civil Rights
movement in America.
A few short years before “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” was the March on Washington and Martin Luther King
Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Unfortunately, less than four months after the release of
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” Civil Rights leader King had been assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
The premise of “Guess Who’s Coming
to Dinner,” written by William Rose, is a love story. However, this film wasn’t the typical Hollywood
love story of the day. Dr. John Wade Prentice, played by Sidney Poitier, is a black man. Joey Drayton, played by Katharine
Houghton, is a white woman. They are in love.
It was highly controversial to have a film that’s
premise was that of an interracial relationship during this time.
Prentice was a handsome, intelligent and highly
successful doctor. He met and fell in love with Drayton while on vacation in Hawaii
and the two immediately decided they were going to get married. There was only one problem. They have to go tell her parents.
Drayton’s parents Matt and Christina, played
by film legends Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in their ninth film together, were about to have their feelings and beliefs
challenged by this young couple in love. Houghton who plays Hepburn’s daughter in the film is her real-life niece.
The film’s one hour and 48 minute runtime
is mostly filled with Prentice and Drayton trying to persuade her parents that true love is capable of breaking boundaries.
At times the film drags and many critics and viewers claim that forty years later it really doesn’t stand the test of
time as a great film. In the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest American Films list in 1998 the film was listed
at number 99. The film dropped of the list in the 10th anniversary edition released in 2007.
The highlight of the film is definitely the acting
of three screen legends in Tracy, Hepburn and Poitier. Between the three of them there were seven Best Actor and Best Actress
Academy Awards earned.
Hepburn won the Best Actress award for her role
as Christina in the film. Tracy was nominated for Best Actor for his role as Matt.
The film also garnered an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay-Written Directly for the Screen awarded to Rose. “Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner” lost out on the Best Picture award to another race related film starring Poitier, “In
the Heat of the Night.”
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”
was the final film in Tracy’s career. He died just 17 days after filming
was completed.
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”
is one of the most important films in cinema history for being the first to deal with the subject of an interracial relationship.
