''They Call Me Mister Tibbs!'' is a 1970 American

DeLuxe Color DeLuxe Color or Deluxe color or Color by DeLuxe is Deluxe Laboratories brand of color process for motion pictures. DeLuxe Color is Eastmancolor-based, with certain adaptations for improved compositing for printing (similar to Technicolor's "sel ...

crime drama film In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

directed by Gordon Douglas. The second installment in a trilogy, the release was preceded by '' In the Heat of the Night'' (1967) and followed by '' The Organization'' (1971). The film's title was taken from a line in the first film.

Sidney Poitier Sidney Poitier ( ; February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was an American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Go ...

reprised his role of police detective

Virgil Tibbs John Dudley Ball Jr. (July 8, 1911 – October 15, 1988) was an American writer best known for mystery novels involving the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs was introduced in the 1965 novel ''In the Heat of the Night'', whic ...

, though in this sequel, Tibbs is working for the San Francisco Police rather than the

Philadelphia Police The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD or Philly PD) is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The PPD is one of the oldest municipal police agencies, fourth largest ...

(as in the original film) or the Pasadena Police (as in the novels).

Plot

Detective

, now a lieutenant with the San Francisco police, is assigned to investigate the murder of a prostitute. A prime suspect is Reverend Logan Sharpe, a street preacher who is leading one of the sides in a city referendum on an urban renewal project. He tells Tibbs he was visiting the prostitute in his professional capacity, to advise her spiritually, and that when he left her apartment, she was alive and healthy. Tibbs tracks down and questions the janitor from the victim's building, Mealie Williamson, and Woody Garfield, a shady character who owns the building and might have been the dead woman's pimp, who sent the janitor into hiding. Later, suspicion falls on a hood named Rice Weedon, who is pursued and shot by Tibbs in self-defense. Tibbs’ ongoing investigation leads him to conclude that Sharpe really is the murderer. When confronted, Sharpe confesses; however, he requests that Tibbs not arrest him for 24 hours, until the polls close on the city referendum. When Tibbs refuses, Sharpe, while being taken away to be arrested, purposely steps in front of a moving vehicle and is killed.

Cast

Production

Quincy Jones Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...

wrote the score, as he did with '' In the Heat of the Night'', although the tone of the music in both is markedly different. The previous film, owing to its setting, had a country and bluesy sound, whereas his work for this film was in the funk ''milieu'' that would become Jones' trademark in the early 1970s. The film's title was taken from Virgil's assertive response in ''In the Heat of the Night'' after the chief mockingly asked him what people call him in the city where he works. It was followed by a third film titled '' The Organization'' (

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses (Solar eclipse of February 25, 1971, February 25, Solar eclipse of July 22, 1971, July 22 and Solar eclipse of August 20, 1971, August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 1971 lunar eclip ...

). The film was the last appearance of veteran actor

Juano Hernández Juano G. "Juano" Hernández (July 19, 1896 – July 17, 1970) was a Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was a pioneer in the African American film industry. He made his silent picture debut in '' The Life of General Villa'', and talking ...

, who died in July 1970, a few days after the film premiered.

Reception

The film has a 60% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

as of June 2009. It did not attract nearly as positive a response as the series' 1967 debut, '' In the Heat of the Night'', which won five

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

including the

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establ ...

Best Picture Oscar The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only categor ...

Musical score and soundtrack

The

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

was composed, arranged and conducted by

, and the soundtrack album was released on the

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

label in 1970.Edwards, D & Callahan, M
Discography Preview for the United Artists label 40000 & 4000/5000 Series (1958-1972)
accessed January 30, 2018

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

's Steven McDonald said "''They Call Me Mister Tibbs!'' had a more open, urban attitude from its San Francisco setting. The music throughout has an edge, with some interesting musical experiments going on ... Jones, as one example, used cimbalom to reflect Tibbs' feelings".

Track listing

All compositions by Quincy Jones # "Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)" − 4:33 # "'Rev' Logan (Organ Solo)" − 2:12 # "Blues for Mister Tibbs" − 6:27 # "Fat Poppadaddy" − 3:28 # "Soul Flower" − 4:20 # "Call Me Mister Tibbs (Main Title)" − 2:15 # "Black Cherry" − 2:15 # "Family Man" − 1:20 # "Side Pocket" − 2:05 # "Why, Daddy?" − 3:08 # "Call Me Mister Tibbs (End Title)" − 0:46

Personnel

*Unidentified orchestra

arranged In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

and

conducted Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance, such as an orchestral or choral concert. It has been defined as "the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture." The primary dutie ...

by Quincy Jones including **

Carol Kaye Carol Kaye (née Smith, born March 24, 1935) is an American musician. She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years. Kaye began play ...

electric bass The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

Chuck Findley Charles B. Findley (born December 13, 1947 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is an American trumpet player known for his diverse work as a session musician. He also plays other brass instruments such as flugelhorn and trombone. His technical abilities ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standar ...

Emil Richards Emil Richards (born Emilio Joseph Radocchia; September 2, 1932 – December 13, 2019) was an American vibraphonist and percussionist. Biography Musician Richards began playing the xylophone aged six. In High School, he performed with the Hartf ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:They Call Me Mister Tibbs! 1970 films 1970s crime thriller films American crime thriller films American mystery films American sequel films Blaxploitation films Films scored by Quincy Jones Films directed by Gordon Douglas Films set in San Francisco Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Films shot in San Francisco American police detective films Virgil Tibbs United Artists films African-American films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films