In The Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967)
In a small town of Mississippi named Sparta and during a normal night, a policeman Sam Wood (Warren Oates) finds the body of the richest man in town dead and in blood. His head seems to have been smashed by an object. Passing by the same night is the homicide agent Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) from Philadelphia. At first, people of the place make the easiest link between the stranger in town and the murder. Especially since Tibbs is a black man, Gillepsie (Rod Steiger) the county sheriff gets all his suspicions on him. However, he soon discovers that Tibbs is a police officer and that he could be his best help to resolve the crime.
