"They Call Me Mr. Tibbs"

 

One of the best lines ever in one of the best movies ever, in the  1967 film In The Heat Of The Night.

When the Philadelphia police detective, Sydney Poitier, is wrongly accused  of murder by the racist southern cop, Rod Steiger, Steiger sneers at him and asks, "What do they call you, boy?" Poitier stares him down and replies, "They call me Mr. Tibbs."

I was just a kid and didn't know much, and knew even less about racism in the southern states, but I knew that was a great line and it was a great movie.

Of course, Sydney Poitier died this week.

That was not his only movie from 1967.  

You might have heard of the other two - I'm not even going to give you the titles.

Quite the year for the first black man to play essentially a leading role in a film let alone three.