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Even 50 years ago, in a nation inflamed by prejudice and civil rights marches, the interracial marriage fable “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” played suave and polite at a defining moment when cinema was shifting from studio conventionality to bracing realism.
Directed by Stanley Kramer, the film was a mannered Hollywood take on an incendiary topic. Some critics found it bland and patronizing, but it was a commercial hit that epitomized mainstream Hollywood’s liberal leanings at a time when more revolutionary films about social upheaval, such as “The Graduate” and “Bonnie and Clyde,” were recasting American sensibilities.
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