GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Stanley Kramer
Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier,
Katharine Houghton, Beah Richards, Roy Glenn,
Cecil Kellaway, Isabell Sanford, Virginia Christine
In their last movie together, Tracy and Hepburn play Matt and Christina Drayton, an old-school liberal couple forced to come to terms with their daughter's decision to marry a black man. That their prospective son-in-law is a doctor played by Sidney Poitier doesn't hurt, but still. Christina quickly becomes supportive, but Matt sees only trouble ahead. The movie's a series of tense conversations between various combinations of characters over drinks before dinner - the doctor's parents are a part of this, too - leading up to a climactic speech by Tracy, which resolves things pretty much the way you'd expect it to. It's sincerely intended, a bit overstated and very well-acted: the quintessential Stanley Kramer movie. Kramer took a big risk making it. Tracy, who was 67 and looked about 90, was in bad shape and uninsurable. He got through it, barely, delivered his last great performance, and died two weeks after the picture wrapped.
