Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Rating:
Summary: One of my all time favorite movies!!
Review: This movie is still wonderful. It makes you laugh and cry and THINK

Rating:
Summary: A must-see for people about to get married
Review: A touching film about the conflict between one's ideals (what one preaches) and one's encounters with the harsh truth when faced with it himself.

A spell-binding account of the interaction between the parents and the child when the child takes an important decision like inter-racial marriage.

Rating:
Summary: Ahead of its time with insight, feelings and conflicts
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Kate and Spence's last film together!
Review: Wonderful performances by everyone! This really is great entertainment

Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but important film
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: good but very offensive
Review: this was a very good film just because it was spencers goodbye to kate, other than that the film was very offensive to me, what i couldn't understand is why would a fine , educated, succesful, nobel-prize winning black man, would feel as if he has to get some nothing white girls parents approval for marriage,in to days eyes that white girl would have been totally out of her league dating a man as accomplished as sydney's character was, but other than that the film is pretty good

Rating:
Summary: Excellent thought-provoking film
Review: 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.




Rating:
Summary: Boring??? Oh Pha-leeease!
Review: This is one of, if not the best, love stories of all time! To B. Viberg of Atlanta, you have obviously never been in love. Emotionally powerful throughout the entire movie!

Rating:
Summary: An older person's perspective....
Review: 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."

Rating:
Summary: Still relevant today
Review: Great movie, great acting, great script. Still as relevant today as it was back when.