Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Rating:
Summary: Finally Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is on DVD
Review: I bought this DVD 5 months ago and I really like it. I had watched this movie a lot as a child and was so excied when I saw it available on DVD. The DVD has a lot of cool specail features.

Here Is A brief Review:

Katharine HepBurn, and Spencer Tracys daughter. Kathryn Houghton comes home froma holiday to Hawaii with her Fiancee (of only 2 weeks ago of knowing each other) Sidney Potier. Well You can guess who katharine hepBurn and Spencer Tracy feel when their daughter comes home and says that she is engaged to someone of a different race. Well his parents fell the same way. This movie ends well.

Great Movie. 5 Star Rating.

Rating:
Summary: Great actors, great concept, not so great script.
Review: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is a very good movie featuring some of the best actors of all time: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and Sidney Poitier (and then-newcomer Katherine Houghton, who's acting is a bit cheesy). The concept of interracial marriage bringing two seemingly different families together is great, but the movie seems to go a little slow, things being repeated constantly. But overall, it's a movie well worth seeing.
And, "The Cranky Reviewer" really made me mad! Saying that black people don't talk like Sidney Poitier's character is completely ignorant! I guess the "Reviewer" thinks there are no intelligent black people?! Ick. It's people like "The Cranky Reviewer" that keep a lot of people in the mindset of the year this movie was made!

Rating:
Summary: A dinner I don't mind missing...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Bold Hollywood Movie
Review: Despite a few negative words on the film from others, I believe it was bold in its day and a should be commended on that alone. The acting was also effective for its time. Like so many of Sidney Poitier's movies, he provides lively character roles that have convinced me he is the best male actor of all time (in my opinion). Although this wasn't his best movie it deserves recognition.

Rating:
Summary: Hit me powerfully...years later...
Review: I saw this when it first came out. I was 18. It was so corny and unbelievable; a terrific Black man with the daughter of an affluent couple...reality check! Then I was appalled when Hepburn won over Dunaway, Bancroft, etc. Then Rose's screenplay won over "Bonnie & Clyde". That idiot Academy!! Well, things have changed, and this film has definitely survived the test of time. There's really no question that Hepburn won because of her devotion to Tracy (in his last role). She certainly didn't reach the depth of Dunaway or Bancroft, or the Great Dame Edith Evans (who should've won for "The Whisperers"). I thought the screenplay of William Rose was a bit gratuitous, but, as I said, that was then. Inter-racial marriage is prevalent in all levels of society today. I've always admired Stanley Kramer, and "It's a Mad (4) World" was his only discernable light-hearted film. He missed on a few marks here, though; he allowed some unforgiveable mugging from Tracy, as well as some banal banter between Tracy & Cecil Kellaway. Isabel Sanford stole the show with over-the-top wisecracks, but it was Beah Richards who was nominated as Poitier's mother. That year, she also played the disreputable Mama Kaleba in "In the Heat of the Night, and the opposing characters that she delivered were both impressive. Poitier was confident and sure, typically fine; Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece) was overly affected to the point of distraction. I think Rose's screenplay isn't the problem, but Kramer's direction, to allow the editing of Robert C. Jones to include cuteness between the baffled leads. (Jones was nominated, so was Kramer: whose fault?) After a few years I'm looking at this film again; there are three GREAT scenes...First, when Hepburn tells her store manager (Virginia Christine) to get lost; next when Beah Richards talks to Hepburn and then to Tracy, telling him he's a dried up shell of a man, like her husband; then Tracy's final, wonderful speech before they have dinner. These moments are worth your time and effort, especially Richards' two scenes. The bottom line is that it's a beautifully constructed film, with a somewhat unbelievable premise. All together it's enjoyable, and knowing the elements behind this production make it better. There's no question that Hepburn is great, but this is an Oscar that was given for reasons other than greatness of acting. Bancroft should've won this year; Hepburn should've won in 1962 when Bancroft won (for "Long Day's Journey Into Night". Hepburn as a drug-addict? Wow!) I still watch this film and watch it repeatedly; it's hard to describe this film because it's so admittedly corny, but the GREAT moments really slap you in the face. Judge for yourself, and don't hold my opinions against me.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars Plus!
Review: This has always been my favorite Kate Hepburn film. I thought she was at her very best with every kind of emotion that a movie can hold. I hadn't seen this film in about a year and decided to watch it when i heard of her death. The scene where Kate is standing outside, during the sunset and the theme song playing in the background as her facial expression goes from deep thought to a total breakdown of tears,,,,,,,I cried also. Thank God for motion pictures where we can watch great talent like Kate and hold on to those moments forever and ever.I'm from Connecticut and spent a good part of my life in Old Saybrook where she lived. She was a wonderful wonderful loving and giving women and you can tell that when you watch her films. A gem of a really early film of hers is "Spitfire",,,,,very early 30's. I hope that film is revived because it really is a classic. Thanks Kate for all you have done for live theatre and movies. You will be missed.

Rating:
Summary: An Unusual Experience at the Time...
Review: I have heard and read many arguments for and against this film's inclusion in the AFI list. I can only add that when I first viewed this film, in 1967, in Hastings, Nebraska (no hotbed of liberalism, by anyone's definition) I witnessed something I had never experienced before. The movie played to a full house that Saturday evening and, at it's close, the entire audience applauded loudly and long.

Rating:
Summary: Great Actors, Mediocre Script
Review: Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn star as the liberal parents of Katherine Houghton who find their liberal point of view challenged when she brings home her fiance, Sidney Poitier. Although he's a doctor with impeccable credentials, her parents (and later his parents) worry whether the couple understands the adversity they will face if they go ahead with their interracial marriage. When watching this film, it is important to remember it was made at a different time in the world and would have been more controversial in the Sixties than today. The actors are all strong, with particular praise going to Tracy, Poitier, Cecil Kellaway as a family friend, Beah Richards as Poitier's mother, and Isabel Sanford as Hepburn and Tracy's maid. Although it's great to watch such pros in action, the script isn't always up to their level. Some of the conflict is simplisticly presented, with a final speech by Tracy that he pulls off like only he could, but which is too theatrical. There isn't much tension either, since it seems obvious how the film will end. But no doubt director Stanley Kramer and the screenwriter had to be careful how the material was presented, and in the capable hands of all those involved, it runs smoothly and probably appears better than it really is.

Rating:
Summary: DATED, BUT DEFINITELY WORTH A LOOK
Review: This movie was made during the early years of the civil rights movement and is therefore somewhat daring for its time. I wouldn't rate this a tour de force but it is a good movie with some great performances. As always, Sidney Poitier is an awesome talent. Intelligence and dignity are his hallmarks which is probably why he makes few appearances in movies today. As for Grouchy Reviewer's remarks: My oh my what the incorrigible Bernie Mac could do in Mr. Poitier's role...Are you ready for this America?

Rating:
Summary: AFI Top 100? Lets take a closer look:
Review: 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.