It is rare to be in the company of a man like Norman Jewison; a man so accomplished and yet so unassuming. I have done two long form interviews with Jewison over the years.
This weekend Saturday Night at the Movies is showing two of Jewisons' best known films: 'In the Heat of the Night' and 'Moonstruck'. You might be surprised at how well these two films hold up. Time has not dampened the racial punch in 'In the Heat of the Night', and neither has time been able to age the appeal and charm of Moonstruck.
Rod Steiger stands-out as Gillespie a Police Chief in a small southern town forced to work with a detective from the city. Stieger could have played Gillespie as an ignorant, bullying southern racist cop - instead his Gillespie is a hard-core police officer who's disrupted but not offended by the arrival of a black detective, Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier ).
Over the years Jewison has granted us many interviews, both in his Toronto location and in L.A. Jewison's also been the subject of a 30 minute long tribute. You can find the whole tribute on the SNAM page
