Note: More housing shenanigans today, so this is an item from the early days of the green door when I got the idea to review the AFI top-100 films.

Some movies are on the top-100 list because they are great stories told very well, while others are on the list for their great technological breakthroughs. Some are on the list for their cultural impact. That is the case with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a comedy about race mixing from 1967. The film had two legends, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, and a big star at the moment in Sydney Poitier.

The film was viewed at the time as groundbreaking because it featured a mixed-race couple in a positive light. Right around the time the movie was released, the Supreme Court had struck down anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia. Of course, the civil rights movement was at its peak, so this was just what white liberals wanted to see, which was white liberals being celebrated for their goodness.

The movie itself is pretty simple. It opens with the couple in question, generic rich white girl and her much older black boyfriend, Sydney Poitier, getting off an airplane and strolling through an airport like lovers on a walk in the park. Keep in mind that this is 1967, but no one in the airport notices, because you see, this is the glorious future where race no longer matters, so get used to it you terrible bigots.

I was not around in 1967, but I was around in 1977. I was around in 1987 and 1997 as well, so I have some idea what it was like in 1967. I know in 1987, a mixed-race couple would have drawn a lot of stares. It was an extremely rare thing. In 1967 you can be sure the people in that airport would have been dumbstruck, but the story needed everyone to be cool with it so the rest of the story would make more sense.

Anyway, the couple arrives at the mansion of the white girl’s parents. The black maid, played by Weezy from the Jeffersons, is predictably flabbergasted by the site of the master’s daughter bringing home a black man. The two blacks are uncomfortable for a moment, until Poitier asks to use the phone. He goes into the den to use the phone, where there is a bug picture of FDR on the desk. That could be important.

The first parent home to meet the new man is the mother, who is uncomfortable, but tries to play it cool. This is where we begin to learn that Poitier is not just a black guy, but a special black guy. He not only knows exactly how the mother is feeling, but he knows exactly how to break the tension. Unlike the rest of the characters, he alone can rise above the situation and see everything from every perspective.

Next home is the father, who is home early to get ready for his golf outing. For some reason he is not surprised to find a middle-aged black man in his home with his daughter, so he just makes small talk for a while. Eventually, he notices there is a middle-aged black man in his home with his daughter and that is when they tell him that his daughter is planning to marry the middle-aged black man.

This is when we learn that Poitier is the most successful black man on the planet, as he is a famous doctor and world leader. Because the world depends on him, he is going to fly to New York to visit smart people and then head off to Geneva to run the World Health Organization. He has a plan to save Africa by teaching the smart African kids how to do stuff so they can make Africa great again. No kidding.

This is what sets the plot in motion. The parents have a day to give their blessing to the marriage or Poitier will break it off, as he is so noble and kind that he will not come between the white girl and her people. You see, he is not just the most accomplished black man on the planet, he is a numinous Negro. He is the saintly black character who exists to help the whites make their journey to enlightenment.

For a while Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn fret over what to do. Then a priest arrives and hams it up as the stereotypical Irish priest, accent and all. He thinks the whole thing is wonderful and this is where we see he is supposed the be the audience in this drama, enjoying how the rich white liberals struggle with their hypocrisy while trying to get with the times and accept the race mixing.

The catch phrase that is the title of the film comes when Tracy learns that Poitier’s parents are coming for dinner. Tracy is at his wit’s end over having been put in this situation when Hepburn says, “guess who’s coming to dinner?” Then she explains how Poitier’s parents are flying up from Los Angeles. Then the priest invites himself to the dinner, because he is the voice of the audience and needs to be there.

At the big dinner we learn that the black parents are opposed to the race mixing, but the mother is more open-minded to it than the father. We now have the predictable setup of the females trying to bring their stubborn husbands along. At some point the women commiserate and agree to work on the men. Poitier tells off his father, not so subtly implying that old blacks were responsible for keeping blacks down.

Finally, the black mother has a heart to heart with Spencer Tracy and he finally sees the light and agrees to bless the marriage. He then gives a big speech that sounds like it was written by the ad hoc committee of the revolutionary council on race in the 1967 people’s assembly. I actually felt sorry for Tracy having to say such stupid things in what would be his last movie before he died. It was ten minutes of cringe.

You have to judge movies in the context of their age, but even making big allowances for the age, this is a bad movie. It is ham-fisted, predictable, and preachy. The main characters are shallow and basic, with little to no development. Poitier is not even a real person in this movie. He is just a ridiculous version of the Magic Negro. The only character with any depth is Tracy and that is not much.

That said, the movie belongs on the top-100 list for its cultural value. It made $54 million in 1967, which is $420 million in today’s money. That is a massive success, which tells us that whites were enormously gullible and stupid back then. Sure, the movie had big stars and it was intended to be a comedy, but the fact they could not see that this was nothing but anti-white propaganda does not speak well of them.

There is also the fact that fifty years ago the usual suspects were pushing the idea that the only way for white men to be saved was to allow their daughters to run off with non-white males. The reason that white people face a long war to regain dominion over their societies is because it has been a long war against them. The people on the other side played the long game. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a good reminder of that fact and therefore worth watching today.

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