The film and its story
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer and released in the United States in December 1967. The screenplay was by William Rose. The story is set in San Francisco and takes place over a single day. A young white woman, Joey Drayton, played by Katharine Houghton, brings home a Black fiance, Dr. John Prentice, played by Sidney Poitier, after a short courtship. She expects her parents to be delighted. Her father, Matt Drayton, a liberal newspaper publisher played by Spencer Tracy, and her mother, Christina, played by Katharine Hepburn, discover that their principles are harder to live by when the issue is in their own home.
John’s parents, played by Roy E. Glenn Sr. and Beah Richards, are drawn in as well, and so is the Draytons’ Black housekeeper, Tillie, played by Isabel Sanford, who is openly suspicious of John. Each reacts differently. The film’s central question is whether the Draytons will give their blessing, and the final scene turns on a speech by Tracy’s character.
The legal background
The film’s timing is the key to understanding it. For much of American history, many states had laws that criminalised or voided marriages between people of different races. In June 1967, in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Virginia’s ban was unconstitutional, which effectively ended such laws everywhere. Before that decision, sixteen states still had bans in force. When the film reached cinemas in December, the ruling was only about six months old.
That context gave the story a sharper edge than the title or tone might suggest. A viewer in 1967 would have known that, until recently, the central couple could not have legally married in a number of states. Kramer, whose earlier films included The Defiant Ones (1958), with Poitier and Tony Curtis, was known for issue-driven productions, and he made this one at a moment when his subject was in the news.
A film shaped by its cast
The film was the ninth and last screen pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Tracy was seriously ill during production, and he died in June 1967, within weeks of finishing his scenes. Hepburn and Kramer were reportedly protective of him during the shoot, and viewers have often found his final scenes especially affecting. Katharine Houghton, who played Joey, was Hepburn’s niece.
Poitier’s year was remarkable. In 1967 he appeared in To Sir, with Love, In the Heat of the Night and this film, making him one of the most visible stars in American cinema. As the civil rights movement continued and American cities saw unrest, such as the Newark riot and the Detroit uprising in July, his screen presence was being watched with great interest.
Reception and awards
The film was a significant commercial success and was among the top-earning American films of 1968. At the Academy Awards in April 1968 it received ten nominations. Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress, her second Oscar, and William Rose won for Best Original Screenplay. Tracy received a posthumous nomination for Best Actor. Poitier was not nominated for any of his three performances that year, which some writers have noted as an oddity.
The ceremony itself was affected by events. It had been planned for 8 April but was postponed by two days following the King assassination and the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. In the Heat of the Night, rather than this film, took Best Picture.
Criticism then and now
The film was praised by many viewers and critics at the time, but it also drew objections, some immediate and some that grew over the years. The main criticism is that the story makes things too easy. John Prentice is presented as nearly flawless: a respected doctor with a distinguished record, whose work takes him abroad and whose manners are impeccable, while the white characters are given the more complicated emotional journeys. Critics argue that this approach meant that the film asked little of its mostly white audience, and that the only question was whether a perfect man could be accepted.
Other observers point out that the couple’s love story gets relatively little screen time, with the drama focused on the parents. Some Black critics at the time felt that the film reflected a white liberal view of race. Defenders reply that Kramer was working within the limits of mainstream cinema, that a studio film taking on the subject in 1967 was in itself significant, and that the film’s gentle tone helped it reach people who would have avoided a harsher drama.
Poitier’s character is also best understood alongside the other roles he played that year, particularly the tougher Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night, which offered a different and often more combative image.
Why it is remembered
The film remains a touchstone for discussions of how Hollywood has treated race, in part because its flaws are as instructive as its virtues. It was an earnest, star-driven attempt to put a live national issue on the screen at a time when the law was changing, and it captured a moment when liberal sympathy and real social change appeared to be heading in the same direction. The title has also entered popular speech as shorthand for a family confronting something unexpected. Whether it was bold or cautious is still debated, and it can reasonably be described as both.