Talk:Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Spencer Tracy Illness?
On Spencer Tracy's Wiki page, it says he died of a heart attack 17 days after filming. Here the page implies he was dying over a long period of time. As far as I know, heart attacks are one-time affairs and don't take place over a period of months. Can someone please straighten this discrepancy out? The part about Hepburn really crying because she knew it would be the last time she'd be on screen with him, also seems enormously subjective and sensational for what's supposed to be an objective Wikipedia page. --121.133.218.142 (talk) 18:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC) i agree that the whole 'she was crying because it was their last movie together' bit sounds like something made up by sensationalist reporters. but i looked at the spencer tracy page and it was clear his health had been deteriorating for several years at that point. including a previous hart-attack and a flurry of other diseases. and while some hearth-attacks do indeed come as a surprise, suddenly killing a healthy person, many more hart-attacks are 'the official cause of death' of people who were already extremely weakened by other diseases and conditions (cancer, lung-disease, severe malnutrition, previous hart-attacks, old age, etc). it's kinda like saying an aids-patient 'died from the flu': it might be technically correct, but there is a lot more to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.127.246.44 (talk) 18:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Racial labels
Are "Caucasian" and "African-American" the words used in the film? I have only seen it dubbed? --Error 00:29, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * No, they're not. The words used in the film aren't appropriate in a 21st Century encyclopedia article, unless one is quoting directly. Quill 06:30, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * They used "colored" usually, with the occasional "Negro". But I don't think they went anything beyond that.

Tillie the maid used the "N" Word when speaking to Dr. Prentice in one scene, none of the white characters went past 'negro' or 'colored as said before

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BetacommandBot (talk) 12:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Black-on-black racism
The article states "The film also touches on black-on-black racism, as when both the doctor's father and the household cook Matilda 'Tillie' Binks, played by Isabel Sanford in a small but memorable role, take the young man to task for his perceived presumption." "Black-on-black racism" redirects to "colourism". I think this may oversimplify some problems. The "colourism" article refers to the assumption among black people that lighter-skinned blacks are superior to darker-skinned ones. However I don't think that's the cook's attitude, she objects to any black person getting above themselves. (Also, when she ask him "Just what sort of a doctor are you?" he replies jokingly "Would you believe horse?", implying that a veterinarian is inferior to a human doctor, yet another questionable attitude.) I think the father's attitude is more complex, although it might be worth checking the film carefully on this. He could be quite proud of his son's achievements as a doctor, but his objections are to the marriage are because of the problems they will encounter. (He could actually have a point, but his wife's argument is that "love conquers everything".) I have seen the film described as "well-acted but otherwise dubious", there are some problems with the story. PatGallacher (talk) 19:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * there is no black on black racism. there is discrimination, which anyone can commit, or bigotry. plus, dubiousness is relative. is there still a prevailing notion that a dr. prentice cannot exist, today, in hollywood? yes. that is racist. plus, tillie using the n word is supposedly 'clever use', but kramer wrote the script. however, the overall message needs to supercede that, but not excuse it. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 05:40, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Critics of the plot have pointed out that Dr. Prentice seems a bit too good to be true, it might have been interesting if Joey had decided to marry an unemployed kid from the ghettoes. However, there are some other problems, although some of them are necessary for the dynamics of the plot e.g. holiday romances often don't work out, Joey seems slightly young and immature to be getting married, and (withough getting too judgmental about age-gap relationships) is the ideal son-in-law really a significantly older man? There is one point in particular that struck me as problematic the first time I saw it. Dr. Prentice tells Joey's father in private that Joey thinks they are getting married regardless, but in reality he will only get married with his blessing. This downright duplicitous and deceitful behaviour could have been perfeclty legitimate grounds for Joey's father not regarding him as the ideal son-in-law. PatGallacher (talk) 12:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call Dr. Prentice's behavior duplicitous, but rather level-headed. He is going to, hopefully, spend the rest of his life connected to these parents, and he'd better do it in a way that doesn't ruin their relationship with the woman he loves. I found his action to be rather altruistic: he won't set up his naive fiance to be hurt by losing her parents. Again, another instance in which Poitier's character is too good to be true. Jfulbright (talk) 21:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * as stated earlier, 'too good to be true' identifies that race bias problems still exist, today. a black man is not allowed to be great, apparently, and neither is a black woman, apparently. age difference is considered fine if the two participants are white. in fact, in that case, pedophilia is justified in a lot of hollywood ip. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 05:47, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Star Trek
Should it be noted that the title of the movie was referenced in Star Trek 6? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.9.4 (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Release date
It didn't finish shooting till late May 1967, just over 2 weeks before Spencer Tracy died (10 June). It was released on December 12, 1967. So how the hell could it have been showing in theaters on January 1, 1967? That looks like a typo for 1968, but even that looks wrong, because it makes a nonsense of a December 12, 1967 release date. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  23:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Time between end of filming and Spencer Tracy's death
The article states that filming ended on 26 May 1967 but that Spencer Tracy died 17 days after filming ended. Spencer Tracy died on 10 June 1967. There are 17 days between 24 May 1967 and 10 June 1967 but only 15 days between 26 May 1967 and 10 June 1967. Other sources (perhaps Andersen?) say that Tracy died two weeks, i.e., 14 days, after he completed his work on the film, which would imply that filming ended no sooner than 27 May 1967. So on what day did filming end? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.43.207 (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well I think Tracy filmed his last scenes before the picture offically wrapped, so it makes sense if there is a two day difference. I have a very detailed biography on Tracy so I'll check the facts at some point. --Lobo512 (talk) 13:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Now that it's been almost seven years later, what have you discovered about which day the filming ended?107.185.97.165 (talk) 06:13, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Still racists?
Given the fame of this movie, I was quite surprised how much I would consider the movie itself slightly racist. For example, did anybody notice that the only relevant decision is made by the white father? Somehow, when the Joey’s father decides that’s considered enough, and opinion of the Mr. Prentice sr. is more or less irrelevant. Could anybody point to some literary criticism on this theme?

Ceplm (talk) 17:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


 * , the book Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness has a chapter devoted to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Try to look it up in Google Books or on Amazon.com. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 19:07, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * this is considered clever rationale. the script was written by kramer, and certain characters are used to interpret it. the character expressing that they should not marry still has his script written by a white man. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 05:52, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Parallels to Obama's Parents
Just watched the movie and was struck by the parallels between the couple in the film and Barack Obama's parents: Met on a college campus in Hawaii, older black man who has been married before and been working in Africa, meets younger white woman. When Spencer Tracy's character asks Dr. Prentice how their children will manage in the world, he replies that Joanna expects them to become President of the United States. Barack Obama himself would have been 5 years old when the movie was made. Seems like too much of a coincidence to go unmentioned in the article. Can anyone here find a good source to reference? Lafong (talk) 05:09, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Why is there no mention of the interracial kiss?
Any number of sites say that this was one of the first shows (in the U.S.?) to have an interracial kiss, or that it was one of the first ones (the first?) to have a black and white person kiss. This is considered pretty notable by a lot of folks. So Why is it not mentioned? Where exactly (how many minutes into the film) does it occur? "The film, with its radical-for-its-time interracial romance, marked the first time a white actress and a black actor kissed in a major motion picture. Some movie theatres in the South refused to show it." —Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2017/04/04/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner-was-kind-of-a-thunderbolt.html Misty MH (talk) 16:34, 30 October 2021 (UTC)


 * good point. i would also like to take this opportunity to say that wiki erred in suggesting that 'guess who' is a remake of this film. i suspect that women acknowledge, more than men, who run hollywood, that there is major difference between white woman and black man, as opposed to white man and black woman couples. since, generally, the black man is still considered predatory, by hollywood, the latter couple is strongly embraced by hollywood, as opposed to the former. the suspected women are correct. less than ten years after guess whos coming to dinner, abc introduced soap operadom's first interracial couple. you can guess the configuration. it was ongoing, as abc rejected the same notion for an ongoing series featuring the former optic. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 06:05, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
 * i might also add that this movie is considered comedy drama, officially, including chosen source. the word, romance, is not used, indicating biased training of minds, subliminally, to think that the idea of this being a romance film, is not to be taken seriously. 74.109.247.243 (talk) 06:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

"Influences" section
The main influence for this movie was Bettine Field, the heiress daughter of Marshall Field III, who married a black doctor named Eldridge Bruce. News stories

Wiki Education assignment: American Cinema
— Assignment last updated by Isabella.mitrow (talk) 15:23, 10 May 2023 (UTC)