Intense acting by Sidney Poitier in "Guess who's coming to dinner?" (1967) #REAL TALK

Aug 15, 2026 5:21 AM

mocosoft

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NOT SO FUN FACT: Spencer Tracy, who plays the white father was dying while the film was being shot. Co- star, Katherine Hepburn, and director, Stanley Kramer, both put up their salaries as backing because the studio didn't want to insure an actor who could possibly die in the middle of production. The very last scene in the film is the very last scene that Tracy appeared in; he died 17 days after it was filmed.

I doubt that not so fun fact is the real reason studios didnt want to do the movie. Execs than and now are racist as fuck.

2 weeks ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

My fellow men: emotions don’t make you weak, they make you strong, make you human. Communicating those feelings does not make you weak, it makes you strong, makes others understand you better. Abuse and trauma did not make you strong, it harmed you, but that doesn’t mean you’re weak, it means you’re a survivor, and nothing is stronger than that. You aren’t toxic because you express your feelings, you’re only toxic when you demand no man express feelings and that they must suffer in silence.

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

They call me "Mr. First Black Best Actor Oscar Winner!"

2 weeks ago | Likes 12 Dislikes 0

I saw this in the theatre when it first came out. Superb.

2 weeks ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Not sure Sid's acting. Given the subject matter and the times he was _living_ it.

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

To Sir, with Love • Lulu

2 weeks ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

My dad never tried to talk to me properly, he was a rocker and all he did was tour and not being available. I wanted to learn to play both the guitar and piano. He never taught me. I had to do it myself. But he never listened go my music or tried to connect.

Im now 41 and still struggle with how he never appreciated me. I dont deserve love or attention. It sucks. He died of ALS few years ago though so nothing i can say anymore.

2 weeks ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

Don't let that deadbeat's lack of attention define you, we all deserve love and attention.

All we can do is try to be the thing we needed when we were younger, or even the thing we need now, for someone else.

2 weeks ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

I’m guessing it was his Dad who was coming to dinner?

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 7

Definitely don't simply look up a summary. It might prevent you from looking like a moron on the internet.

2 weeks ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 3

But then it wouldn’t be a guess, would it?

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Watching 'Dinner' a couple of years ago, we expected a cartoonisly-blunt groan-fest of a movie that was hopelessly past it's expiration date. What a pleasant surprise! This smart and shocking film pulled very few punches in discussing interracial marriage during an era when it was controversial. (Recommended over "In The Heat Of The Night" and "To Sir With Love".)

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

"All Hell done broke loose now!"

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

This scene really made me see my relationship with my father in a different light.

2 weeks ago | Likes 92 Dislikes 0

My dad always joked while we grew up that us kids were free slave labor. Then we became adults, and I found out it wasn't a joke. He expected us to sacrifice the next 20 years of our lives living at home with them as 24/7 slaves so they could keep living in a house that was killing them and to just do as we were told. I told him I was an adult, and if I don't get a say in how things go then I won't participate. Last thing I said to him. Never saw him again. Best decision of my life.

2 weeks ago | Likes 38 Dislikes 0

This is incomplete without showing that his anger then gave way to a smile, and telling his father that he loved him and always will, and framing the conflict as a difference of self-identity - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTgahyvBMk4

2 weeks ago | Likes 20 Dislikes 0

Absolutely right.

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Fun fact his daughter is Sydney Poitier too.

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Sidney Poitier was old enough to be part of the Greatest Generation, and his father would be part of the Lost Generation.

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

THEY CALL ME MR. TIBBS!!!

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

For context, the movie is about a young college aged white woman (23 yr old) who has had a whirlwind romance over 10 days and become engaged to a 37 yr old black doctor. She's bringing him home to her parents to meet them and he's seeking their blessing to marry her. The movie was released roughly 6 months after the Loving Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage in the US (production wrapped up just before the verdict was handed down).

2 weeks ago | Likes 22 Dislikes 1

yeah without context this sounds like some spoiled child (adult in age but the child of the person their talking to) acting like they know better.

2 weeks ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 16

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Found the father…

2 weeks ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Still the same even to this day: The old will forever hold back the young.

2 weeks ago | Likes 155 Dislikes 6

Mostly yes, but I was lucky enough to know some older people who held the opinion that the next generation could remake the world and do better. Unfortunately they aren't the ones in Congress, so while I felt free to make my life what I wanted, the system remained largely fucked

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

"I suffered and turned out fine, and so should you," says the father with mental health issues to his son. The idea that my kids should be raised just like I was is stuck deep in my intuition, but I really don't know why. I don't want my kids to experience my childhood. Hell, most of my adulthood wasn't great either. I want them to have a better life than I had, so I try to give them that.

2 weeks ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

The more things change the more they stay the same

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Civilization moves forward one funeral at a time...

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Or the young think they know everything and when they get older they recognize the world is full of shades of grey. All we have is each other. We have an obligation to each other to leave this place better than we found it

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

And yet... the generational trauma continues and the bullshit of the past keeps pulling up on the children of the present and future. We need to do better.

2 weeks ago | Likes 33 Dislikes 0

There's a good offspring song about that

2 weeks ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Sadly, too many people fall into the "Wait until the old bad influence dies out" without putting effort into preventing that influence from seeping into the less-olds.

2 weeks ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

Worse, nearly every society on earth is still beholden to the wishes and desires of dead men who died thousands of years ago.

2 weeks ago | Likes 21 Dislikes 0

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.

Keep the traditions that you like and don’t cause pain. Drop the stupid and painful ones.

2 weeks ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

I try REALLY hard to understand where my kids are coming from on stuff. I think I do a decent job at it. I told them that one day I'll be old and not want to do the things that young me would do without question, and it's up to them to remind me that I promised I'd believe them and do it when the time comes

Additionally, one of my kids is 17 and tried to make a shitty dumb decision yesterday that I had to shoot down, so you know, it's give and take.

2 weeks ago | Likes 13 Dislikes 0

If you’re a good person, capable of empathy, it’s okay to follow your gut. You just have to be able to recognize if you aren’t in the right frame of mind to respond to certain things. Sounds like you’re a great parent

2 weeks ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

This is my exact approach. I know someday my thinking will become less flexible (I saw it happen with my parents— McGovern Democrats who went MAGA). I try to ground myself in their way of thinking knowing my wife and I raised our kids to be kind and thoughtful adults.

2 weeks ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

If you ever get a chance, check Poitier out in 'To Sir, With Love', a really great film from the mid-60s with Poitier as a black teacher sent to deal with the rebels in a down-and-out London high school. Great movie with a great title track by Lulu, who also did the theme for the Roger Moore 007 film, 'The Man With the Golden Gun'.

2 weeks ago | Likes 33 Dislikes 0

Another excellent Poitier film is Lilies of the Field, which garnered him the Oscar for Best Actor. It's about an itinerant handyman who unexpectedly finds himself building a chapel for a group of East German nuns in the Arizona desert.

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

When I was a kid this came on one of the movie channels. We recorded it and watched it so many times! I fell in love with "Sir" too. :)

2 weeks ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

That song still makes me tear up.
Sydney Poiteir was an amazing actor.
They call me Mr Gibbs
To a ir with love
The guest who came to dinner
And the one he did with Tony Curtis ..?
Great great films

2 weeks ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

Makes me tear up, too. The movie you're thinking of was The Defiant Ones.

2 weeks ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Oh...oh...that hit some feels about my recently deceased boomer.

2 weeks ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

Yea, and consideringg the whole plot of the movie, it shows we really haven't progressed much as a society.
How many self-described liberal parents still have the same prejudices today?

2 weeks ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

i wish my dad saw this movie and absorbed some of it. but considering how racist he was, its no wonder he only saw the godfather, scarface, and other such films. when i finally got around to seeing those classics, i found out how much of that shit he would quote at me, and even take out of context to justify his own shitty behavior. my life has only gotten better after completely cutting him out of it.

2 weeks ago | Likes 61 Dislikes 0

I'm glad to hear and I'm sorry.

2 weeks ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

So powertrip movies.

2 weeks ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0