Has to be a mistake to take the title of a sequel from the best remembered line of the originating movie - it's almost an admission that the new film can't come up with a comparable phrase. The portent is true, I fear, as Sydney Poitier reprises his Virgil Tibbs role in another would-be tough, adult, socially aware murder-thriller, but already the law of diminishing returns is applying and so "Mr Tibbs" is inferior to its predecessor in almost every way.

In fact it looks and feels like nothing more than a harder-edged TV crime show of the time, no better or worse than say "Ironside", fired as it is by a fine, occasionally quirky Quincy Jones soundtrack and replete with our man's personal problems to flesh out the character. This small-screen feel is exacerbated by the appearance of TV stalwarts Martin Landau, Ed Asner and Anthony Zerbe and it's fair to say the film never rises above the heights of a better than average TV cop-show episode.

It's biggest failing of course is the lack of dramatic tension which existed so memorably between Poitier's proud, methodical coloured detective and Rod Steiger's opinionated, redneck workaday sheriff in "...Heat of The Night". Here the film is centred entirely on Poitier and good actor as he is, his unerring instinct and judgement palls as the film progresses, whilst his relationship with friend, do-good minister but murder suspect Landau, never really takes off either. Indeed the central "whodunnit" just isn't strong enough to drive the action on, whilst Tibbs' various interludes with his family slow down the action still further, especially the ho-hum scenes with his "difficult" son.

The film is dated of course by its politics and attitudes - no crime in that - but it doggedly fails to fly and in the end stays as little in the memory as even the best remembered episode of any Kojak / Columbo episode you care to mention. Waiting in the wings, of course was a different kind of black detective who was a sex-machine to all the chicks, to take the genre further - can you dig it!

I enjoyed Sidney Poitier's performance in "In the Heat of the Night". But this sequel/spin-off was unsettling and uncalled for at best. The story editing was extremely weak and at times I found it hard to take any care for the characters, even the great Virgil Tibbs himself. The plot was absolutely pitiful it's like an extended version of a bad episode of the TV series "The Streets of San Francisco", and yet that was a good show with hit or miss episodes.

The character flaws provided by Virgil Tibbs have no connection to the ones in "In the Heat of the Night". In the previous film, he was a veteran cop from Philadelphia, not married, had no offspring, nada! We turn to 1970, he's now living in San Francisco, married with three teenage kids and claims he's been a S.F.P.D. for the past twelve years. What gives?

Also we see African Americans and White Americans coexisting like there never was a Civil Rights Movement. I'll accept if it's just a ploy for people to get over it and forget about the past. But it still existed and not every American at the time was had adjusted to it. I also feel bad for Ed Asner who had a thankless role was a suspect running from a crime, not the one in the main story, but for committing a philandering act on his wife. The car chase depicted here was absolutely abysmal.

Tibbs is often in dragging scenes with his mannequin partner who remains mute and smokes like a chimney. In fact with the exception of Tibbs, all the other cops are just paper dolls. The killer in the movie's reason for killing the hooker has no sense of purpose and his personality doesn't connect well either.

Also Tibbs' catchphrase is never once uttered in this movie at all. Poitier doesn't have the drive that his iconic character portrayed when he co-starred with Rod Steiger. In the previous film, Poitier was the most electrifying character in that movie. But in this movie spin-off, he is a shell of his former character. Sidney let me ask you, why did you agree to do this movie? If it was for the money, then I answered my own question.

"They Call Me Mister Tibbs!" is a sorta sequel to "In The Heat of the Night". I say 'sorta' because although it's a sequel and also stars Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs, inexplicably he's now on the San Francisco's police force instead of Philadelphia's and he suddenly has a family. And, you can't just assume he got married and had kids since the last film, as in three years suddenly he has a son who looks like he's about 11 or 12 as well as a younger daughter. I assume they set the story in San Francisco to save money and assume they gave him a family to round out his character...or to fill time on the screen.

The story begins with a violent beating in which a nude woman is killed after she laughs at her lover and his poor performance. Apparently, he can't take it. But who HE is, you do not know and it's Lieutenant Tibbs' job to discover who. Initially, the evidence seems to point to a politically conscious preacher (Martin Landau), who is Tibbs' friend, but because the landlord of the place where the woman was killed is played by Anthony Zerbe, it seems like a safe bet he did it, as, like John Colicos, Zerbe nearly always played the villain! But did he?? It certainly can't be that easy to predict who the killer was.

Unlike the previous film, there are no racial issues in this follow-up.... Tibbs is just a well-respected cop. So, instead of social commentary, the film is more just a straight cop drama...and a pretty good one due to the fine acting by Poitier and the fine supporting cast.