Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

There is much evidence to show that it was not a realistic portrayal of the subject matter, even in the late sixties, and that it is even less recognisable now. But Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is not documentary, or even that later invention; docudrama. It is theatre, and in the theatre, characters are given a point of view, a goal, and obstacles.( Notice that reality is not a prerequisite for any of these.)

So given that we are watching art, what can we say about it? Well we can say that this film contains some of the strongest performances ever committed to celuloid; Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier. Katherine Houghton sings more softly for she carries the torch for youth and innocence (supposedly representing the generation that does away with racism - from 40 years on how we wish that THAT at least were true!)

But even if you think you know the story, and you think there's no reason to see it because it is so dated, BUY THIS DISC and add it to your collection for the performance of a lifetime: Beah Richards as Mrs. Prentice (Sidney's mom) will, in the middle of a movie designed to make you think, reach right into the center of your being and break your heart, just as her's is breaking. Her scenes bring this movie to a higher level - high and deserved praise seeing as Tracy and Hepburn set the bar.

It wasn't meant to cure the evil. It, in truth, hardly acknowledges the evil of racism (perhaps the most valid criticism that can be made) but it did, in it's time, a miraculous thing: it answered the question "Is it wrong for men and women of different races to marry?" -

the answer, simply,: "No."


Bit Prepackaged for My Taste   June 5, 2004
Jeffrey (Oakland, CA)
More like 3.5 stars. There's nothing particularly wrong with this movie but it's not the genius its been made out to be either. It's not nearly as daring as it likes to think it is. He's a wealthy, smart, sophisticated mature professional. She's an airhead. He's black and she's white. He's a catch and a half and she's a twit. The real question should not be why does she want to marry a black man but rather what he sees in her. Of course they will have problems with the intolerant aspects of society. Of course their children will be teased and mistreated by racist adults and ignorant children. But this film was made in the late 60's, not the late 30's. It's also set in San Francisco (Liberal Heaven) and not in rural Mississippi. The white girl's parents are liberals through and through. Poitier's character's parents are a working man & his wife from Los Angeles. Notice how Tracy's character does not object to his daughter marrying a black man but is deeply concerned by how a mixed couple & their children will be received in society. This movie gives itself every break it possibly can to ease its way down a receptive audience's throat.


Boring...   May 17, 2004
B. Viberg (New York, NY United States)
0 out of 6 found this review helpful

This movie has been hailed as being a great piece of work; I tried to watch it. I really did and I could not do it. Portier plays his role well; but then again it is not like he has to act; he just has to be himself. Stay away from this miserable piece(...).


Landmark film about racial prejudice   May 4, 2004
M. Buisman (Amstelveen, The Netherlands)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Considered a landmark film, it addresses racial prejudice and interracial marriage in a time when sixteen states in America still upheld laws that made miscegenation a crime. It is important to pay attention to past racial and ethnic issues, in order to understand those today and to see whether any 'progress' towards a more 'tolerant' society has been made. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is an entertaining, straightforward and well-meant film that will hopefully make students aware of the controversy of interracial relationships throughout the decades and centuries even. Being a child of mixed race parents, I find the film meaningful in showing two people of different races, being very much in love and very willing to face all the social obstacles their interracial relationship is bound to encounter.
Summary
In Guess Who's Coming to Dinner the 23-year-old, white, upper class Joanna "Joey" Drayton (Katharine Houghton) brings home her fiance John Wade Prentice (Sidney Poitier) to meet her parents. When he turns out to be a distinguished 37-year-old black doctor, the "liberal" progressive parents (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) are forced to re-examine their beliefs regarding interracial marriage and are given one single day to do so. Before the parents can get all of their objections sorted out, they have John's parents coming to dinner as well. Both sets of parents have reservations about this union, but try to come to terms with the interracial marriage.
Discussion
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? raises several questions or issues that might be interesting to discuss after viewing it. The film's main themes are interracial relationships and prejudice, and it advocates a mixed race marriage, which makes it a very progressive movie for the 1960s. Considered progressive as well are Joey's 'liberal' parents who have raised their daughter not to be prejudiced and they have done this successfully, with her 'lack of' prejudice extending to her being able to fall in love with an African American. The parents are then left to consider whether they really believe in their acclaimed 'liberal thinking' and this may raise important questions with the viewing audience. Are human beings really as liberal or conservative as they think they are when it comes to practicing what they preach?
If it is not race that prevents the parents (the fathers in particular), both Joanna's and John's, from approving the marriage, what is?
The only objection to the interracial marriage vocalized in the film is the harsh treatment they will most likely receive from society. Although this is a valid and probably accurate objection, it is debatable on whether the fathers do not have more personal objections. The movie glosses over the subject of interracial marriage without getting too detailed, but the concern on whether the couple understands the adversity they will face if they go ahead with their interracial marriage is very clear.
The themes addressed in the film were still much of a taboo in the 1960s, so in order to merely create a 'mild controversy', the director seems to have made the relationship between John and Joey as 'acceptable' as possible. Infallible and with impeccable credentials as a prize-winning doctor and working for the World Health Organization, John is portrayed as an in-laws dream. The character is in every socioeconomic sense a 'good catch': What parent would not want him as a son-in-law? But what if the director had made the fiance a factory worker? Would the audience still find it as easy to accept a mixed-race relationship?
Also, to reduce the seriousness of the racial themes, the film is presented as a comedy. This means that conservative viewers can laugh about it while telling themselves that these events would never really happen. Finally, Joey and John avoid their biggest challenge by intending to live abroad for John's work. Therefore, they will not have to cope with the racial tensions in the country and they will not have to combine two communities and identities or have to pick one over the other.
When it was released it 1967, Guess Who`s Coming to Dinner reflected upon the changing race relation in America. Interracial intimacy and marriage in particular were delicate themes to discuss, which makes this film so important, both at that time as well as today. The individual right to choose a sexual partner, select a spouse and raise a family could not be fully exercised in all of the United States up until the Loving decision in 1967, which banned anti-miscegenation laws. Although these laws disappeared, the prejudices that had always accompanied them, could not be banned so easily. They persisted, despite the colour blind ideal.
The fact that the Joey's father is an intellectual liberal forced to face his own buried prejudices gives the film an important message that should still be considered today. On some deeply personal level many people are still prejudiced, no matter how hard they try to tell themselves otherwise. In Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Spencer Tracy's character comes to this realization, but is able to put his objections for his daughter's happiness. The film chooses to be colour blind like Joey's father and lets pure and simple love instead of race be the basis for a successful marriage. Or as Matt Drayton argues in his 'final analysis' in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner:
"[...] in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel for each other. And if it's half of what we felt ... that's everything".