Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: 40th Anniversary Edition

“Civil rights is one thing. This here is somethin' else.” So remarks Tillie the maid (a pre-Jeffersons Isabel Sanford) at one point in Stanley Kramer's 1967 groundbreaking, then-controversial romantic comedy about a black man (Sidney Poitier) and a white woman (Katharine Houghton), whose plans to marry put her parents' liberal stance to the ultimate test. Forty years later, it's not their love story that is the most compelling aspect of the film, but rather costars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who both won Oscars for their performances as the parents. Tracy, who was gravely ill during production, died soon after the film was completed; his moving, climactic speech—giving his blessing to the interracial couple—has lost none of its power as he speaks of the love he feels for his wife (Hepburn's reaction shots are priceless). A blend of Old and New Hollywood (it's one of the films profiled in Mark Harris' new book, Pictures at a Revolution), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is inevitably dated, but it still rings truer than the recent awful remake (Guess Who), and select scenes (Tracy's speech, Hepburn's dismissal of a racist employee) still play like gangbusters. This double-disc 40th anniversary edition boasts some excellent extras, including featurettes on the film production (the skittish studio tried to cancel the film, claiming it couldn't obtain insurance for the ailing Tracy, but Kramer and Hepburn trumped them by putting up their salaries as collateral), Tracy and Hepburn's on and off-screen partnership, and a tribute to Kramer, the socially conscious director and/or producer of such so-called “message” movies as The Defiant Ones, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nuremberg. Highly recommended. [Note: this 40th anniversary edition of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is also part of the Stanley Kramer Film Collection boxed set, priced at $59.95, along with The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, The Member of the Wedding, Ship of Fools, and The Wild One.] (D. Liebenson)