Rating: 
Summary: GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER...OSCAR, THAT'S WHO!
Review: Words can't even describe how good this movie is, but I'll try. This film was made in 1967 (can you believe that). It's the story of an interracial couple (Katherine Houghton and Sidney Poitier), who travel to San Francisco to tell Houghton's parents (Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) of their engagement.
You can imagine the controversy this movie must have made back in the '60s, but the film makers handeled it very well and very resposibily. I love this movie so much, because it takes a very obvious problem in society (both then and now) and brings it out in the open for all to see. I APPLAUD everyone who was involved with the film. It was a stroke of genius. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" shows just how ridiculous people's prejudices can be. This film proves that "All in the Family" wasn't the first Hollywood project to make light of these issues.
And so I ask the kids, instead of renting your usual "Freddy Got Fingered" or "Dude, where's My Car" movies, rent "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." You'll see, after you watch it, what a real movie is like.
Rating: 
Summary: enjoyable and memorable
Review: hi - i love this movie and i really don't know why.. basically it is a bunch of liberal hogwash but likeable..we can easily see why katherine hepburn's niece who played joey (ms houghton) did not have a very long career.. her acting is painful to watch but all the other characters are quite enjoyable. especially, cecil kellaway who played their friend the priest..spencer tracey was an exceptional actor and one of the true greats in movie history and i can even stomach katherine hepburn in this (but not much else...her voice always grated on me and i think she is overated) ... i think the big speech at the end was obviously aimed at hepburn. i never review movies on amazon but i must admit i was struck by the reviews and the romanticizing of the legendary tracey-hepburn affair.. you know he had a wife... and they should have been ashamed of their behavior all those years.. i think his loving glances and his tribute to her at the end is a bit much..what speech did he make to his poor wife who stood by him all through the years?? oh well, thats hollywood.......
Rating: 
Summary: Watch it for Spence.
Review: "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.
Rating:
Summary: Dated, 60's Period Piece
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting look back
Review: 1967 doesn't seem that long ago until you see this movie. An interracial couple (gasp!).
Anyway, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn can't make a bad movie, so even if this film drops into cliches every once in a while, it's still wonderful.
But one question: Why is Poitier's character so much more educated, introspective and deep than his boring financee? I'd be telling Poitier, look, honey, you can do a lot better. You don't need to settle for this uninteresting waif.
Rating:
Summary: Great Acting (mostly) But Dated
Review: To see Hepburn and Tracy acting together almost makes this film worth the ride! The film is obviously a soapbox for "can't we just all get along?" but it fails on a couple of points. Firstly, any 23 year old woman who is intent on marrying a 36 year old doctor after knowing him for ten days is clearly a cause for parental worry! For the mother to throw up her hands and say: "Joey (the daughter) knows best!" is lousy parenting at best. Secondly, while I can appreciate the fact that the daughter was raised without prejudice, the fact that she seems rather oblivious to the fact that prejudice exists makes her out to be an incredible moron! Also, the fact that the character of the daughter is played by a complete bubblehead who is completely devoid of talent does not help this film! Poitier is fine, as always, but that daughter's amateur babbling of her ridiculous lines almost ruins it for this viewer!
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: I love old films, and this one is a classic and a keeper!
Rating:
Summary: Inter-racial couple deals with society's obstacles
Review: Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are terrific as the wealthy parents of a young woman who returns from a trip abroad with the announcement that she is engaged to be married to a young doctor. Oh, and the young doctor is a negro. As if that wasn't enough to "chew on for a while", the young couple will leave that same evening, to be married as soon as it can be arranged. Adding another twist, the young doctor's parents are arriving to meet their son's fiancee (unaware of her "pigmentation problem"), all in good time to have pleasant conversation with the assembled family over dinner. -- This film is a masterpiece and quite daring for 1967 standards. Seeing the reactions of the parents, especially the fathers, is a powerful statement about our society. The mothers are the ones who think of their children's happiness, and realize how deeply in love they are with each other. A series of "private conversations" culminates in one last speech by Spencer Tracy that makes everyone hearing it reach for a kleenex. Dinner is served! -- Since we will have copies of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" for generations to come, I wonder if one day a viewer will say "Was this really ever an issue?" It may not be in our lifetimes, but maybe one day someone will actually ask that question.
Rating:
Summary: a beautiful film
Review: THE ONLY WAY I CAN REVIEW THIS FILM IS TO ASK ONE SIMPLE QUESTION? IF YOU PUT SPENCER TRACY, KATE HEPBURN, SIDNEY POITIER AND THE SPLENDID BEAH RICHARDS ON THE SCREEN TOGETHER HOW CAN A MOVIE BE ANYTHING BUT GREAT?
Rating:
Summary: One of the ten best movies of all time.
Review: One of the all time classics, but not merely for it's courageous social stand but just as much for it's uncompromisingly high quality of product. No movie before or since has had the emotional or cerebral impact of "Look Who's Coming To Dinner" in dealing with interracial marraige. From Stanley Kramer, who directs and produces it, to the major and minor actors who act in it, this movie is as tight as any movie you'll ever see. No wasted moments, scenes or dialogue. Every word, movement and expression has it's place and they all fit together like a beautiful puzzle. Even the one scene extras, (the delivery boy and Hepburn's co-worker) are important to it's plot development. You can't take one word away without some how diminishing the power of the whole and of the message. If you've never seen this movie, and I'm sure a generation of young movie goers hasn't, you owe it yourself to buy it. It's as vital, fresh and important today as it was in 1967, maybe more.
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