Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (film)

• Release Date: 1967
• Director(s): Stanley Kramer
• Writer(s): William Rose
• Principal Actors and Roles: Katharine Hepburn (Christina Drayton); Katharine Hepburn (Christina Drayton); Katharine Houghton (Joanna "Joey" Drayton); Sidney Poitier (John Prentice); Spencer Tracy (Matt Drayton); Spencer Tracy (Matt Drayton); Roy E. Sr Glenn (John Prentice Sr.); Cecil Kellaway (Monsignor Ryan); Barbara Randolph (Dorothy); Beah Richards (Mrs. Prentice); Isabel Sanford (Tillie)

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is an American comedy-drama about liberal parents who are faced with their daughter’s interracial romance. The movie and cast were nominated for a number of awards, including ten Academy Awards.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which was one of the most popular movies of 1967, did well at the box office and also received good reviews from the critics. The movie had an estimated $4 million budget and grossed almost $57 million.

Director Stanley Kramer did not even have a script when he approached Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn about starring in the movie. The famous couple agreed to appear in the film, and Kramer then asked Sidney Poitier to join the cast. Poitier was the first African American to win an Oscar for best actor in 1964. Poitier said that if Kramer could get a studio to take on the project, then he would do the film. Poitier was so in awe of working with Tracy and Hepburn that he finally asked to do an important scene with two empty chairs instead of the famous pair.

Marriage between African Americans and whites was still illegal in some parts of the United States while the movie was being filmed. However, shortly before its release, in a landmark Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia, the justices ruled that state bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional

Most of the movie was shot on a studio set that recreated the family’s San Francisco home. Exterior shots and mattes of California and its landmarks were also used.

Plot

Joey Drayton falls in love with Dr. John Prentice while vacationing in Hawaii. John is fourteen years older than Joey, and he is a widower. The couple returns to Joey’s home to introduce him to her parents, Christina and Matt, before John leaves for Switzerland the next day. Joey expects her white, liberal parents to have no difficulty accepting her African American fiancé. The older couple, however, is stunned, especially since their daughter has only known John for ten days. The doctor privately tells the parents that he will not marry Joey unless they approve, but he needs a decision that day. Christina quickly accepts the fact that her daughter is deeply in love and supports the young couple. Matt, however, knows that Joey and John face many challenges, and so even though he respects the doctor and the younger man’s work, he is undecided about granting his approval. The older man especially resents the pressure of having to decide so quickly.

Christina’s business associate offers her bigoted opinion, saying that she opposes the couple’s planned marriage, and so Christina fires the woman. Christina and Matt’s longtime friend, Monsignor Ryan, however, supports the couple without reservation. He tries to convince Matt that the couple should be allowed to marry, but Matt does not agree.

Meanwhile, John telephones his parents to say that he is seriously in love but does not tell them that Joey is white. His parents are delighted that he has met someone, and they accept Joey’s dinner invitation. They are shocked, however, when they meet Joey, but John’s mother believes that their love is more important than anything else. John’s father, on the other hand, is vehemently opposed to the marriage, and Matt agrees with him.

John talks to his father and Matt listens to John’s mother, who says that neither of the older men remembers what it was like to be deeply in love. Matt gathers everyone together and clearly states all the problems that the couple will face. He ends by saying that he remembers what it was like to be in love, and so the decision to get married belongs to the couple alone. He will support their marriage. Everyone goes in to have dinner together.

Significance

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was nominated for ten Academy Awards. Katharine Hepburn won the second of her four Oscars for best actress in a leading role for her role as the mother, Christina Drayton. William Rose also won an Academy Award for best writing for an original screenplay. Other Academy Award nominations included Spencer Tracy’s ninth nomination for best actor, Stanley Kramer for best picture and best director, Cecil Kellaway for best supporting actor, Beah Richards for best supporting actress, Robert Clatworthy for best art direction, Frank Tuttle for best set decoration, Robert C. Jones for best film editing, and Frank De Vol for best music.

Tracy and Hepburn also won BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards for best actor and best actress. The cast and director were also nominated for many other awards, including the Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle awards.

In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) honored Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in a special way. AFI’s 100 Greatest American Films of All Time ranks the movie ninety-ninth. The film was also ranked fifty-eighth on AFI’s list of the greatest love stories of all time and thirty-fifth on its list of the most inspiring films of all time.

The movie was significant for being the last movie that starred one of filmdom’s most famous couples, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn went on to make more films and earn two more Academy Awards, but this was Tracy’s last picture. He was ill during the making of the movie and only worked half days. He died soon after filming ended.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was also significant for its treatment of a difficult topic for the times. It was the first to offer an optimistic ending for a film about interracial relations. Kramer hoped to gain audience sympathy by personalizing the larger issue with specific people with whom the audience could identify. Based on the movie’s award nominations and the amount of money it made, he succeeded.

In 1975, a pilot for a television show based on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was broadcast. In 2005, the movie Guess Who was released. Based on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, it switched the interracial families around. The African American father was confronted with his daughter’s white fiancé. The father was played by Bernie Mac, and the fiancé by Ashton Kutcher.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1967) Best Actress: Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn
• Academy Award (1967) Best Screenplay (Original): William Rose

Nominated

• Academy Award (1967) Best Art Direction ()
• Academy Award (1967) Best Film Editing ()
• Academy Award (1967) Best Music ()
• Academy Award (1967) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1967) Best Director: Stanley Kramer
• Academy Award (1967) Best Actor: Spencer Tracy, Spencer Tracy
• Academy Award (1967) Best Supporting Actor: Cecil Kellaway
• Academy Award (1967) Best Supporting Actress: Beah Richards
• Golden Globe (1967) Best Motion Picture (Drama)

Bibliography

Cardon, Lauren S. The White Other in American Intermarriage Stories, 1945–2008. New York: Palgrave, 2012. Print.

DiMare, Philip C. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print.

Grant, Barry Keith, ed. American Cinema of the 1960s: Themes and Variations. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2008. Print.

Harris, Mark. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Kramer, Stanley, and Thomas H. Coffey. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: A Life in Hollywood. New York: Harcourt, 1997. Print.

Poitier, Sidney. This Life. New York: Knopf, 1980. Print.

Ross, Steven Joseph. Movies and American Society. Malden: Wiley, 2014. Print.