Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Earl Gosnell "Guess Who's Coming" opens with a shot of a United airplane in flight. Because of the angle of the wings, the sun reflects bright white off one and dark off the other. This uniting of black and white portends the plot where 23-year-old Joanna (Joey) Drayton (Katherine Houghton) flies from Hawaii to San Francisco to surprise her mom Christina Drayton (Katharine Hepburn) and dad Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) with her new beau 37-year-old Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier). Since her parents have been liberal about race relations all along, she expects, "There's no problem."Desmond Morris (best known for his book *The Naked Ape*) observes human interactions in *Manwatching* (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1974, 169): "If we see something that excites us, whether with pleasure or fear, our pupils expand. If we see something mildly distasteful, they contract." On the following page he relates about, "when liberally minded people were shown photographs of black males kissing white females. Although all the subjects spoke approvingly of racial equality, their pupils split them neatly into two groups--the liberals 'at heart' whose pupils matched their stated beliefs, and the 'merely persuaded' liberals, or perhaps pseudo-liberals, who, despite their praise for racial integration, revealed pinprick pupils when confronted with the black-kissing-white display."The suspense of the film lies in trying to guess which categories the parents will settle into.The colored maid and the suitor's black father both hold forth that the Negro doctor is exceeding his station in life. The white dad admits to being "flabbergasted." Everyone cautions the starry-eyed couple that it might not end well. This is an eminent example of (Prov. 30:21-22) "the earth is disquieted, and it cannot bear: for a servant when he reigneth."This is supposed to be a rare Hollywood message movie. But there are messages and there are messages. One message I read by subtracting 7 years from the lives of the couple, to get a 16-year-old girl and a 30-year-old guy, the exact same age difference between a once 30-year-old Roy Moore now in the news and the 16-year-olds that he was purportedly interested in at that age. His marriage to one of them did turn out just fine. Can it be we Yankees are overly judgmental on the southerners who are more accepting of age difference, just as the South was more judgmental about race? The second message is what if your family is not so liberal? One should perhaps not date someone from a class he or she could never marry into; if they fall in love, what then? Here the couple fell in love 20 minutes after meeting. That would seem to rationalize against fraternization.Typically, in a Hollywood film, love conquers all. We certainly have a cast to give us hope to pull it off. Sidney Poitier is the only Negro actor at the time a White audience could abide in a leading role. The actresses were just the ones to tug at the heart strings. Notwithstanding the great acting here, Poitier and Houghton just didn't have any chemistry together. For supposedly being in love, they simply didn't look at each other often enough. Furthermore, Portier's speech inflections were nowhere near those of his character's parents making it hard to believe he was their son. The movie was redeemed in part by Billy Hill's song, "The Glory of Love," played in various forms throughout."Guess Who is Coming to Dinner" was directed by Stanley Kramer, with Ray Gosnell the assistant director. The Gosnell clan (of whom I am one) originally hailed from Virginia; perhaps that accounts for all the southern style hospitality shown in the film. It was released 50 years before I just now saw it, back in December, 1967. It just got accepted into a national archive to preserve culturally significant films. Its "message" has to do with things perhaps changing in fifty or a hundred years. I wouldn't hold my breath. It probably has application to other "special difficulties" as well.It followed the template of a play, more or less, with limited fixed settings and heavy dialog. I wasn't overly impressed by it.

Mark Turner I had seen GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER when it was first released. At the time it held no particular meaning for me, after all I was only 10 years old and had no concept yet about the topic of racism. To me people were just people and skin color meant little. Watching it now and remembering various items through the history of our country I can see where at the time it would have been highly controversial. What I didn't realize until now was just how funny the movie is as well.The story revolves around a young couple, Joey Drayton (Katherine Houghton) and John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), who have met in Hawaii and immediately fallen in love. The only issue is the fact that Joey is white and John black. While that might seem normal today in 1967 it was still controversial. The thing is Joey thinks that her parents will have no problem with this.What she discovers is that her parents while tending to be liberal are what has been termed "limousine liberals". That is to say they are well off, preach one thing and then do the opposite. The shock on their faces as each finds out is both interesting and hilarious. Joey's mother Christina (Katherine Hepburn) is perplexed at first but seeing how filled with joy her daughter is soon accepts her choice.Joey's father Matt (Spencer Tracy) is another matter. Matt has supported causes all his life as the publisher of the newspaper The Guardian. Now that one of these causes has arrived on his doorstep he's not quite as embracing. He knows the uphill battles the two will experience when exposed to public scrutiny. His reasons are not bigoted at all when looked at but more one of concern. Or are they? This is something that he must wrestle with on his own terms, confronting the possibility that he does harbor some sense of racist attitude.Not only are Joey's parents faced with this in the most sudden manner but their acceptance is put on fast forward. John, a world renowned doctor, is on his way to Geneva to work with the World Health Organization. They only have that night with them and John tells Matt in private that without his blessing there will be no marriage. All weighs on Matt's shoulders now.If this weren't enough another fly is tossed into the ointment. While talking to his mother and father on the phone Joey interrupts and invites them to dinner at her parent's house that night. What she doesn't know is that John hasn't told his parents about her yet either and he's not expecting them to be as accepting as hers are which is strained at best.There is plenty of support around the main theme here to provide plenty of both laughs and insight. Isabell Sanford as the Drayton's housekeeper offers her own opinions asked or not throughout the film and sees it as something wrong. Cecil Kellaway as longtime family friend and golf partner for Matt Monsignor Ryan also weighs in from time to time. Each of the characters brings to the table a different perspective to the situation.What was once thought of as a problem now seems common place. So when watching this film you have to place yourself in the mindset of what was going on back then. It shows how far we've come in 50 years. And at the same time with the number of racial issues coming to light in recent years it shows how we still have far to go. Perhaps not as far as in 1967, but there is still room to grow.What surprised me most while watching the film was that they've taken a hot topic for the time and made it one of the funniest things I've watched in some time. The theme itself isn't funny but the reactions of all involved create some of the funniest moments ever put on film.One special note on the film is that it was Tracy's last. During production he was seriously ill and many takes were done in short spurts in an effort to help him. He gives a tremendous performance here with a final speech that is filled with insight and affection from his character for his daughter. Both Hepburn and director Stanley Kramer put up their salaries in escrow until he completed his scenes to since the insurance company on the film had such a high premium on him. He completed his last scene on May 24, 1967 and died 17 days later on June 10th. He received a posthumous Oscar nomination for best actor that year and actually won for best actor at BAFTA.Twilight Time has done a great job with this one as they always do. Not only are we presented with a clean looking print there are plenty of extras on hand as well. Those include an isolated score track, audio commentary by Karen Kramer, Steven Spielberg, Tom Brokaw and Quincy Jones, A LOVE STORY FOR TODAY featurette, A SPECIAL KIND OF LOVE featurette, STANLEY KRAMER: A MAN'S SEARCH FOR TRUTH featurette, Stanley Kramer accepting the Irving Thalberg Award, the 2007 Producers Guild Stanley Kramer presentation to An Inconvenient Truth and the original theatrical trailer.As with all Twilight Time releases this one was pressed with only 3,000 copies available. This is a movie that should be on every film fan's shelf so pick up one immediately if you can.

maureenmcqueen I went to see it for the first time with my grandmother when I was 17. I loved it but it felt strange to me because my grandmother after 22 years of widowhood, had remarried to an African American man. He had become a blessing in my grandmother's life and in ours. How could Spencer Tracy of all people be against the union? After the movie we went to dinner and my grandmother answered all my questions with a single answer that's been with me always and that sometimes explains absurdities like Charlottesville 2017 - "Society, humanity doesn't evolve all at the same time" Of course Grandma', you were right. Watching Guess Who's Coming To Dinner in 2017 was an experience. Is not that Spencer Tracy is against their union, - Tracy was only worried to what his daughter was going to face 1967 - He was thinking like a father and not like a thinking, evolved liberal. On the other hand, Roy Glenn, Sidney Poitier's father objects to his son marrying a white girl. Sidney Poitier stops him by saying "Dad, you see yourself as a colored man, I see myself as a man" Was it as didactic as it sounds in 1967? Who cares? The message was delivered - I also was so moved to see Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy together for the last time and they knew it was for the last time. Sidney Poitier is superb as the messenger who points at the absurdity of racism. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is a delicious document of its day.

CriticalViewing At the film's end, the counterculture and the societal mind-set turn is the most prominent. It's somewhat tense, packed (with different individuals and "groups" of people) and has the viewer watching with batted breath to see how this will all be handled, and if the couple we've come to love, Dr. Prentice and Joanna, will find acceptance and if that acceptance remains an important factor prior to marriage. The common themes of counterculture and prevalent throughout. The elements of race, how Joanna openly talks about sex with her mother (we see her mother go red in the face, yet Joanna behind her is totally unfazed. A great use of framing here). Also, there's an okay amount of swearing, conflicts between the older and younger generations (where the younger generation isn't immediately reprimand as they would have in earlier films).