In the latest of a series of ultraradical Right-leaning decisions, US President Donald Trump has decided to change the ending of the highly-influential 1967 Norman Jewison movie, 'In The Heat Of The Night'.
The movie starring Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier, centers on a murder investigation after a rich businessman has been killed in the fictional town of Sparta, Mississippi. Steiger is Bill Gillespie, the racist local police chief, in charge when Poitier's character, Virgil Tibbs, is arrested at the train station, principally because he is black.
It is only after questioning him, that Gillespie discovers Tibbs is actually a Philadelphia detective, who has been sent to the town to help the local cops with the case. The two eventually work together to solve the murder. Along the way, the pair achieve a begrudging mutual respect.
The film was instrumental in raising the profile of black people in society, and paved the way for blacks everywhere to become successful in careers that, until then, they were virtually barred from.
President Trump is seeking to change all that.
In a move that will turn the clock back 50 years, Trump wants to edit the movie, in order to make Tibbs the guilty party.
When Officer Wood arrests Tibbs at the train station, Trump wants to dispense with his suit, and to replace it with tattered denim overalls, which are covered in blood. Tibbs will be taken to see Gillespie, who will grill him long and hard, uttering every racial epithet under the Sun, until Tibbs cries out in pain:
"Ah did it! Ah did it! Please, boss, stop wit de talkin!"
Then Tibbs is hung, and a party is held, attended by 5,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan.
It's not known how the public will receive these changes, but it's thought that about half of all Americans will be in favor, and half won't.
