Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (40th Anniversary Edition)
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton, Cecil KellawayDirector: Stanley Kramer
Studio: Sony Pictures
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release: February 5th 2008
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User Reviews
Great Movie!!! - Rating: 5/5
I would easily categorize this movie as a classic. For me (who lived all my life in Africa) where racism is a very strange concept, this is an 'eye opener'. So I'll recommend the movie to fellow Africans so they can understand a part of the history of the Africa-American.
If things were still this bad so many centuries after slavery was abolished, I can imagine what happened during and immediately after the slave trade.
Good One! - Rating: 5/5
Sidney Poitier is one my favorite actors. He, Hepburn and Tracy were superb in this one.This movie will make you laugh. I liked it because it had a very positive spin on interacial relationships without it being too over the top. You could relate to it.
Ahead Of It's Time - Rating: 5/5
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
This is one of my favorite old school movies. Hollywood is continuing to beat around the subject of race relations which is what makes this movie timeless. Spencer Tracy, Audrey Hepburn & her niece (Katharine Houghton) with up and comming star; (back then) Sidney Poitier and 3-all time Hollywood favorites, accademy award winners and the top of the Hollywood all-star list, Tracy, Hepburn & Poitier with a supporting role by Isabel Sanford destined to become Weezy to George Jefferson. The premise is simple by today's standards and yet as old and complex as it was 3,000 years ago. When people fall in love nothing else matters, not money, not fame, not color, etc. Tracy and Hepburn play great parts as (shocked) parents of a young daughter home for a surprise visit from I think college in Hawaii. What their daughter (played very well by Katharine Houghton) who is actually Hepburn's niece in real life does not say is that she is bringing her husband to be with her and she just shows up back home to everyone's surprise with Sidney in tow. Sidney just happens to be a member of the "World Health Organization" and doctor in tropical diseases as well as being interned at Johns Hopkins is a black man. Well you can guess what a stir this movie made back in 1967 and if you are too young to know, it was a powder keg. Suffice it to say that as the day goes on Hepburn, the first to find out and later Tracy and eventually Sidney's parents not knowing any of this except that Sidney has met a wonderful girl and is home temporarily; plan to get married. The direction by Stanley Kramer is top notch. The wardrobe department back then had money to burn and with 2-academy award wins you can't go wrong if you like old school movies with heart you will enjoy this one. The best or at least my favorite part of the movie is Spencer Tracy's speech at the end of the movie is Tracey at his best. If it dosen't touch the heart, nothing will. Great movie, a must for your academy award collection and in this day and time when four-letter word movies can get a PG-13 rating, you can safely take the entire family on this "joy-ride" of a tender and significant movie. I'm not that impressed with Hollywood some times but sometimes they do get it right. In my opinion, they got it right.
That's The Story Of Love - Rating: 5/5
As a nationally published author, I understand that quality is lacking in today's artistic efforts. Most advocate the BIG-BANG Theory, full of sound and fury, but the significance of things weighs little on the minds of many.
As a study to my novel THERE'S ALWAYS A REASON, I wanted to examine the twists and turns and depths of love as it pertained to the "perfectly imperfect" union of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. For that reason, I decided to watch ALL THEIR FILMS film in sequence, and study their unique chemistry. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, their last effort made with a "race against time" mindset due to Spencer Tracy's health, blew me away with its depth.
The story, obvious to us all after almost forty years, was the first of its kind to tackle interracial relations. Katherine Houghton sparkled as the lively optimistic Joey Drayton. Her innocence infectious, her tenacity as well as energy and understated strength illuminated the screen. Young love oozed from her pores.
As does Sidney Poitier. In a dramatic role as a Joey's successful black beau, I couldn't help think of the tension, plus relationship issues I encountered some twenty years after this project was made when dating a white woman, as well as the negative looks given by people six years into the twenty-first century, like it's still taboo. Portraying his role with great intensity, his worthy performance is one of his very best. That confrontational scene with Roy Glenn was breathtaking in its power.
Supporting efforts by Isabel Sanford (The Jefferson's Fame) and Beau Richards (That passionate, "What Happens When Men Grow Old" speech was the perfect set-up for...) were astoundingly exceptional in their range. Sanford, playing the cynical maid, was humorous in her attack mode, while Richards nearly steals the show in the too few minutes she graced the scene.
I cannot begin to describe what I felt, watching Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in their roles as Christina and Matt Drayton. Surrealism at its finest, truth met fiction in an emotional way. From Spencer's gaze of love in 1942's WOMAN OF THE YEAR after he saw Kate fiddling with her stockings to the very last scene of his life, you could feel the love and devotion between the two. That last look into Kate's teary eyes brought the house down. Remember when they were both in the car, at the ice cream parlor, and she uttered the lines which referred to her taking care of him. If You Read 'An Affair To Remember", You'll see the validity in the statement.
I can only imagine the emotions that ran through both of them, as they knew their imperfect yet perfect relationship was drawing to a close. Their love for each other was evident throughout, and, in this viewers mind, stole the movie. That climatic speech Spencer Tracy gave at movies end moved me to tears. I can understand why Katherine said that she could never watch that movie - for it was a public goodbye. The sand in the hourglass near empty: twelve days after the final take, he was gone. That speech, done in one take was a not only the close of an era of when actors really acted, but more so was a fitting tribute to their love: the only thing that mattered between Spence and Kate was what they felt, and how they felt for each other. That meant everything to those two, as well as all that witnessed their unique union.
That indeed, is the story of love.
A Movie Worthy of Showing to my Students - Rating: 5/5
I teach English in a university in China and show them English movies every Friday night to help improve their vocabulary and listening skills. It has been a problem finding good movies without bad language that will portray good values to them. This movie teaches love of our fellowman and an example of loving family support without the terrible language so many of today's movies have.
