African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi.

Norman Jewison,director of the 1967 film "In the Heat of the Night," appears with his wife Lynne St. David before a 50th anniversary screening of the film at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival in ...