SERIES
May at the Heights Theater
Actor, director, activist, ambassador, and Knight of the British Empire, Sidney Poitier commanded attention almost as soon as he stepped in front of a camera. Galvanizing on stage and screen, Poitier’s characters confront numerous challenges, revealing his fierce intelligence, pride, and resilience, while slyly daring Poitier’s opponents to deny him.
(1961, DCP, 128m) dir Daniel Petrie w/Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ivan Dixon, Ruby Dee. Waiting on a $10,000 life insurance payment, the remaining members of the Younger family are at odds about the money. Based on Lorraine Hansberry’s brilliant play, perhaps the first to expose largely white Broadway audiences to Black middle-class life, this powerfully […]
(1967, DCP, 110m) dir Norman Jewison w/Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant. A small Mississippi town’s wealthiest citizen is found murdered on the street, so police chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger, who won an Oscar for this role) arrests a Black man at the train station. Big mistake. Chief Gillespie, meet Philadelphia detective […]