MovieChat Forums > Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) Discussion > If it were MY Daughter......

If it were MY Daughter......

posted 20 years ago by yttimsmc11
77 replies | jump to latest

I wouldn't have had a problem at all with the race thing...(if two people love each other, that's all that matters, and to hell with everyone else.) My problem would have been in how long they've known each other. 10 Days!!! Hardly long enough to know if you want to make a lifelong commitment like marriage.

In the 10 days they'd known each other all they did was have fun. They were in Hawaii, for crying out loud. No responsiblities, no hard times, no ups and downs.

If my daughter came home with ANY man (white, black or purple) after only knowing him 10 days, talking marriage, I'd have to put my foot down and be against it. I'd urge them to give it more time to get to know each other in their everyday lives. What's the big rush anyway?

......but it was Sidney Poitier after all, so that's understandable.

[–] classicmoviedame 17 years ago

Have you ever heard of LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?

[–] flameow152 16 years ago

Love at first sight doesn't last forever. You can only stay with someone so long just on the initial infatuation of meeting them. Once things settle down and actual problems arise, it's downhill from there.

To the original post: Hold on there, purple? I'd draw the line at purple, that's just creepy.

[–] suertelou-widget 17 years ago

I just watched the movie yesterday for the first time. I have three points I would like to add to the discussion.

1. The ten day time frame is an issue for Mom in the beginning. But as soon as she realizes how happy and sure her daughter is, she dismisses it and starts asking questions about how they met and what he's like. Then she finds out he's not white.

2. Ten days is long enough to fall in love and decide to get married, even on vacation. People change constantly and it is impossible to know, even after 30 years of marriage, that a relationship will last a lifetime. It is more important that they laugh at the same jokes, are passionate about the same causes, agree on whether they want children and share ideals regarding bread-winning and child-rearing. These are all things you can learn about a person in ten days.

3. How do you "put your foot down" and tell a child you don't approve of a marriage? The daughter has said she will marry no matter what and doesn't even know that her fiancee has this all or nothing deal with her parents. If Dad "puts his foot down," he will do irreparable harm to their relationship. This is pointed out in the movie by the priest. The daughter has made up her mind, and the father can either support her or not, for whatever reason (race or time frame or age or whatever).

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] suertelou-widget 16 years ago

I just spent some time trying to find statistics on the longevity of quick marriages and didn't come up with any.

I did find out that about 70 percent of women and 50 percent of men believe in love at first sight. And that the divorce rate is based on the number of marriages compared with the number of divorces in a single year. Since the marriage rate is going down, it makes the divorce rate (>50 percent) higher. Also, the older you are when you get married, the more likely it is to last.

Now I'm curious... Is a marriage preceded by a long courtship more likely to last than a marriage with a short courtship?

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] suertelou-widget 16 years ago

My original point was that no matter how well you know someone before you get married, you will never know for sure what you're getting in to. I don't think I could be that spontaneous, but I wonder if being spontaneous hurts a marriage's chance of lasting.

Aside from extreme cases, it seems that most marriages fail over more mundane things than nutcase dads or mental disease: like growing apart or differences in opinion on child-rearing or disagreeing on how to spend money.

I still want statistics.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] rossneville2003 15 years ago

The point of them only having knon each other for ten days is well taken,however it is necessary because otherwise the parents would have known about the relationship already if they had been dating longer.

[–] lolarites 13 years ago

If they had waited, there wouldn't have been a movie.

[–] LuvvieHowell 12 years ago

Absolutely agree with you.

Why are they in SUCH a big rush to get married? Seriously, its' like one of them is dying and they have to get in the "I do's" before last rites.

Even though I cannot feel or see any chemistry between John and Joey, one has to assume they're riding a tidal wave of emotion. Falling in love is powerful; you have the rush of feelings, the chemicals surging through you, all the "newness" is so exciting...and to all those things I say "fantastic!"

BUT...if John and Joanna ARE so deeply enthralled with each other...if the passion is so great, why not ride it out and enjoy it for as long as possible? Why rush into a lifelong contract that is going to immediately throw a bucket of water on those lustful flames?

[–] blackhawkswincup2010 12 years ago

I agree in principle that rushing into marriage is generally not a good idea. On the other hand, I proposed to my wife on the second date. We weren't burning in lust or anything, it simply felt right. So, 35 years later, we have six kids, two grandkids, and are still in love. Ya never can tell...

[–] rrb 11 years ago

Sorry dude, but there's something wrong with a man who prosposes to a woman who's effectively a stranger. You say you're still in love, but it doesn't sound like you know what love is. People like you just want to be married, and in the end, it's immaterial to whom.

My aunt was married 60 years to the boy she fell in love with as a teenager. He was an alcoholic depressive given to horrible rages. But she'd insist she had a good marriage, b/c she couldn't look the face the fact that her girlhood fantasy didn't turn out to be what she'd imagined.

As to time not mattering b/c it "feels right": my closest friend moved in with his partner after a few weeks. I protested that they hadn't really had a chance to get to know each other. He too said, as many others on this thread have, that it simply felt right. I can still see him smiling and saying, "When it's right, it's right."

He crawled out of that relationship 2 years later, battered by an emotionally and verbally abusive partner he hadn't bothered to get to know before he got "swept off his feet". The $5000 which the partner owed him was never paid back. My friend spent years in therapy dealing with why he was so quickly carried away by this relationship, and why he kept trying to make what became a patently abusive relationship work.

I felt compelled to present a dose of reality to the Love Conquers All posts.

[–] gaylordsmythe-higglebott 11 years ago

Not only is the marriage date two weeks after they met, but she is moving to a different continent a week after that. Poiter's character sounds like he travels a lot and he also practices jungle medicine. He might someday be working in an undeveloped and somewhat isolated area. Very different from Hawaii or uptown California. This baffles me more than the shotgun marriage.

So in short, the pair of them have not only made it that much more difficult break up if the attraction fades or they discover living together drives each other nuts. (Seriously, they couldn't have tried living together a few months engaged before getting married?) The pair of them have to set up very different lifestyle.

Seriously, Joey does not make a single mention of what she will be doing while John works all day. She knows no one else, there may be culture shock or home sickness. If her family weren't so rich, she would be stuck there, having to weather loneliness or depression.

Who knows, maybe she would love it there, but we just know so little about her. She comes off as an energetic, sweet, kinda sheltered young woman. Does she know ANYTHING about where they are going? Is she the type to flourish in unfamiliar environments? We just don't know.

[–] icyharris-539-169904 11 years ago

I definitely had more problems with the whirlwind romance, the ultimatum (we're getting married no matter what), and the age difference. If I were her parents, instead of being concerned about their daughter marrying him, they should have wondered what an accomplished doctor with impeccable credentials would see in their flighty daughter.

[–] artsmomplano 10 years ago

Knowing of the awards the movie and it's actors had won, I was still pleasantly surprised by the quality of the acting and how far the movie had surpassed my expectations. I enjoyed Hepburn and Tracy more than usual. Normally Hepburn's accent really annoys me and seems out of place in movies where she was really popular with other viewers, like African Queen, but I was totally enthralled regarding this movie.

I felt the realism of the attraction between Poitier's character (John) and the daughter Joey was well done and believable from the opening moments. Joey came across as intelligent, open minded, full of life and youthful optimism, strong-minded and guileless -- just as her parents had raised her, which I felt the script capitalized on to address the issue of the "only 10 days." When John said she made him feel like he came back to life after the years of widowhood, it was believable. Normally I can't sit through movies with women past age 15 portrayed as stereotypically ditsy and immature and so when I read your comment about her being flighty, I was was hesitant to watch the movie, but for some reason, I did not get the same impression of her that you did. I do have to admit, she does come across to me as selectively impulsive: reserving her impulsivity to something she really feels strongly about and sticking with it. I did not get the impression she was randomly impulsive about anything that comes along and then bail out when the going gets tough, like some frustratingly impulsive people that have tried my patience in real life.

The monologues were all very strong. I really got a kick out of Hepburn firing her employee and wanted to applaud after hearing Poitier's speech to his father.

Ironically, the monologue most pivotal to the plot -- Poitier's mother (Mrs. Prentice) to Tracy's character -- was delivered by one of the weaker of the cast. Other than the acting by the maid and Mrs. Prentice, which I felt was so-so, I found the acting in this film among the top in quality of all films of the mid-20th century, causing me to enjoy this film way more than I expected.

[–] louiseculmer 9 years ago

Exactly. Those are the issues that would bother me far more than the colour thing.

[–] lroy77 11 years ago

I do not understand what is wrong with ten days? People CAN fall in love at first sight. I've seen it in my own family (real world).

If it was a poor, (any color), low-life with a history of drugs and alcohol that'd be different. But a prestigious doctor (with a few bucks)...sure.