AS I was saying before, Sidney Poitier was and is still one of my favourite big screen actors. He hadn't acted in that many movies, as far as I know but those which I had seen him in were great films.
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? is one of them. It has a great social message, even 41 years after it was released to the world (1967).
With the help of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, this movie has become one of the classics to come out of the rocking sixties.
The story is rather simple (by today's standards). Dr Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton) meets Dr John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) while holidaying in Hawaii.
Everything would have been fine, if Dr Prentice is just an ordinary guy but he's an African-American and the issue is more than just black-and-white.
Their daughter's preference for a future life partner brings to the fore matters that have put certain strata of society into a spin.
Matt Drayton (Tracy) and Kristine (Hepburn) had to discuss all those aspects of society that they usually hear about, concerning other parents, which now confront them.
The dialogue in this movie is one of the best I have ever seen and heard. Poitier's performance is par excellence.
Tracy was at one of his best, even though he was at the twilight of his acting career. In fact, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? was his last movie.
Somehow Hepburn and Tracy paired up very well together in most movies they were in over the decades.
Director Stanley Kramer handled the movie and the issue of race pretty well in a decade that had been defined as one of the most racially troubled in American history.
But thank God, there's a big dose of maturity in the stirring and heart-warming conversations between the bridegroom-to-be and the parents of the white woman doctor.
In between somewhere, there's an Irish priest, but it all adds up to make a delicious film.
It is a love story. It is also a comedy of sorts. But its greatest feature is the honesty with which its handles the sensitive issues that surround a inter-racial relationship.
The movie has one of the most intelligent conversations ever to be heard on screen. Unfortunately, till today, the race issue still brings forth suspicions and hurt in certain quarters. Why so?
It continues to baffles mankind why two people in love cannot have a smooth relationship when the colour of their skins differ.
Martin Luther King Jr battled this issue up till the day he was shot. America still talks about it. Barack Obama has to deal with it even as the country of 300 million slips into the first decade of the 21st century.
Until and unless, people of all colours learn to see beyond colour, race and religion, movies like Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? will continue to be relevant and important.
The reason is simple: we have not learnt our lessons. And we shall be compelled to confront these issues until we see that beneath the surface of our skins, we are but from one family.