Word: steiger
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...father image is only an illusion. The Roman collar is as big a put-on as his accent and his wig. Under them is an effete, seething schizoid (Rod Steiger) who can kill when he assumes an identity other than his own. But who is he? New York's police assign a green, gawky Jewish detective (George Segal) to find the answer. After eyeballing the first victim, Segal promptly advances a pop-psych theory to the press: the murderer, he argues, is a mother hater who takes Mom for a slay ride every time he garrotes a middle-aged...
...theory is not too far from the mark, but it elicits furious denials from Steiger, who keeps taunting his pursuer by phone, hanging up before the calls can be traced. Meanwhile, victim after victim is fingered by the Manhattan strangler, who blithely pops into new personae as easily as most men change ties. His disguises range from the Irish priest to a German plumber to a homosexual hairdresser. He even plays a prostitute in drag and throws in an imitation of W. C. Fields on the brink of madness. But the killer's ego is even more monumental than...
Although murder and mental illness are hardly laughing matters. Director Jack Smight squeezes legitimate comedy from the corrosive camaraderie of Steiger and Segal in their hare-and-hound relationship. Not that the film is totally successful. Eileen Heckart, as Segal's mom, aims at Kosher salami but comes out Irish ham. And the end, heavy with Christian expiation, is as self-conscious as a Sunday-school morality play...
Still, the majority of nominations were beyond controversy. Bonnie and Clyde is up for ten Oscars. Paul Newman received his fourth nomination for Cool Hand Luke; the protean Rod Steiger got his third, for superbly playing the gum-chewing redneck sheriff opposite Poitier in Night. Perhaps the most important fact about this year's nominations is not the who but the where. All five best-actor citations went to stars of U.S.-made films. In the best-picture category, for the first time in nine years, all five candidates are domestic products...
Still, watching Steiger is a joy, and just as his performance is a triumph of television acting, In the Heat of the Night is a big, wonderful TV show...