By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 16, 2022 — I have been binge-watching Sir Sidney Poitier movies over the past several days and I have concluded that he is was unquestionably one of the world’s greatest actors and should have been the recipient of more than one Academy Award.
He unquestionably deserved an Academy Award for his performance in “The Defiant Ones” and for his outstanding performances in “In The Heat of the Night,” “To Sir With Love,” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” which I have just watched again for the “umpteenth” time.
During my research of some of Sir Sidney’s movies, I came across one that I had never seen before, in which he co-stars with Michael Cain, and delivers yet another performance worthy of an Academy Award.
In the “The Wilby Conspiracy”, released in 1975, he is a black anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa and he and Michael Cain, a British engineer, are forced to run from the South African Secret Police.
Here is a description of the The Wilby Conspiracy’s plot:
“Having spent ten years in prison for nationalist activities, Shack Twala (Sidney Poitier) is finally ordered released by the South African Supreme Court, but he finds himself almost immediately on the run after a run-in with the Police.
“Assisted by his lawyer Rina Van Niekirk (Prunella Gee) and visiting British engineer Jim Keogh (Sir Michael Caine), he heads for Cape Town, where he hopes to recover a stash of diamonds, meant to finance revolutionary activities, that he had entrusted to a dentist before his incarceration. Along the way, they are followed by Major Horn (Nicol Williamson) of the South African State Security Bureau, and it becomes apparent that he has no intention of arresting them until they reach their destination.”
It is an excellent movie that is available on Amazon and I highly recommend that you purchase it.
I had the good fortune of meeting Sir Sidney Poitier and speaking with him on more than one occasion, during his visits to Washington, D.C., the first time being when he attended a Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) function here in D.C, in the 1980s – I can’t recall the exact year – and we naturally discussed then current events in The Bahamas.
Aside from being a fellow Bahamian, I knew all of his brothers and other members of his family very well. His family homestead in Nassau is on Deveaux Street, very near to Our Lady’s Roman Catholic Church, where I was an altar boy growing up in Nassau, and his brother Reginald was a very good friend.
May his soul continue to rest in peace.
See BAHAMAS CHRONICLE at https://bahamaschronicle.com/sir-sidney-poitier-was-unquestionably-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-actors/
