Elizabeth Eckford ignoring the vitriol from Hazel Bryan on her way to integrating Little Rock Central High School. Elizabeth’s calm demeanor, cool shades, and pursed lips are incredibly indicative of the brave people on the front lines for the battle for equality.
This is the dance sequence that Fred Astaire famously called, “the greatest dance number ever filmed.” I tore my ACL just watching this. In my mind, Harold and Fayard Nicholas are far and away the greatest dancers to ever walk the earth; with Fred “Rerun” Berry a distant third.
Bonus comedy: Here’s Harold hamming it up with Bill Cosby and Sydney Poitier thirty years later in “Uptown Saturday Night.”
Staying true to the book, the screenplay had Tibbs not reacting to the slap from Endicott. Poitier was not having it. “I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll make this movie for you if you give me your absolute guarantee when he slaps me I slap him right back and you guarantee that it will play in every version of this movie.”
Bonus cinematic awesomeness: The butler’s reaction at the very end of the scene. Bonus cinematic awesomeness trivia: The butler is played by Jester Hairston. Hairston was a Tufts and Juilliard trained actor who had a long career in radio, TV and film. You might remember him from his role as Rolly Forbes on the 80s sitcom “Amen.”