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IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, directed by Norman Jewison, from a screenplay written by Stirling Silliphant, based on John Ball's same-titled 1965 novel, premieres in New York . Set in the mid-sixties in a small Mississippi backwater, Sidney Poitier stars as a black Philadelphia homicide detective who reluctantly forms an uneasy alliance with the town's red-neck police chief (Rod Steiger) to track down the killer of a prominent local businessman. A combustible, racially-charged police procedural wins five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Silliphant), Best Actor (Steiger), Best Editing (Hal Ashby), and Best Sound Mixing.
