Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967)

 From Spencer Tracy's first Oscar nomination, to his last. 

Again, the plot of this film is simple and would be outdated if the film was made today. A daughter brings her brand spanking new fiancé home to meet her parents. Barely sounds like anything right? Only this is 1967 and her fiancé is black and she isn't. 

Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton) returns from Hawaii (why she was there in the first place is never explained) when she quite literally ran into Dr. John Prentice (Sydney Poitier) and falls nearly instantly in love and doesn't see or even feel that there will be any issues because her liberal parents raised her to be color-blind, even though that couldn't have been possible since her parents were well-educated and had great, near high-profile jobs and to get everything done, they employ a black housekeeper, Tillie (Isabell Sanford). 

And needless to say, Christina (Katharine Hepburn) and Matt (Spencer Tracy) are both shocked, flabbergasted as Matt later says and while Christina warms to the idea in a reasonable amount of time (which is to say less than five minutes), it takes Matt much longer (basically the whole evening). 

It gets more complicated when John's (Roy E. Glenn, Sr and Beah Richards) parents arrive along with the Drayton's family friend, Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellaway). John's father is on the same page as Matt while Mary scolds Matt, believing that he and her husband are too old to remember what it was like to remember to be in love. 

Fortunately, the film ends happily with Matt giving them his blessing and everyone finally heads off to eat. 

My problems with it are well, the ones the film rarely discusses. While the film focuses on the issue of race, there is also a sizable age difference. Joanna is fourteen years younger than John and John is a widower which is mentioned several times, to fairly good effect. But while John is off to Geneva for his job with the WHO (World Health Organization), but what will Joanna do? Her mother has a great job so, I wished that her career was at least mentioned. And they had a whirlwind courtship, one that was far too short. 

Still, the performances cannot be ignored and Tracy's speech at the end was certainly one of the best in cinematic history. And this is a multi-generational love story. While John and Joey are in the bloom of love, Christina and Matt also realize how in love they still are with each other. The film isn't perfect and it is quite dated, but the issues are still real. Grade: A-

Side Notes:

-A side note, the issue of ageism is also brought up, just in one scene when Matt backs into a car (owned by a black man) and the owner goes off, saying that someone of his age shouldn't drive. Matt does admit fault, mainly because it is his fault and gives the guy some money on the spot when it should have been reported to the insurance.

-Christina fires her one co-worker at the gallery as Hilary (Virginia Christine) who cannot believe that Joanna is marrying a black man as she clearly doesn't approve.

-There is also an interesting scene between John and his father on parenting. 

-I'm glad the issue of children is brought up, as well as the issue on if John and Joanna slept together. They haven't, which is probably the most unrealistic part of the film.