Review of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show (2020) by Indiefilmlover — 02 Oct 2020

Harry Belafonte hosting the Tonight Show for an entire week in 1968 is definitely a subject worth exploring. Despite rising political unrest, racial tensions, class division, and an unpopular war raging in Vietnam, network televison was largely in a lily white land of escapism.

What a breath of fresh air it must have been for Belafonte to fill-in for Johnny Carson and give a America a small dose of reality between the banter and the musical numbers. While we get some sense of what the show must have been like that week (largely through interviews with Belafonte himself), the audience is left wanting more.

With the exception of Belafonte, only a Tonight Show staffer and Dionne Warwick were actually present during the taping of at least one of the shows that week. To help provide some historical context, we also get some input from media critics, but their interviews focus more on Belafonte's career and his activism than his actual appearance on the Tonight Show that week.

Peppered through the documentary are celebrity interviews, which mainly consist of their reactions to learning about Belafonte's appearance on The Tonight Show and their admiration of him as an artist.

While one appreciates the nuggets of information revealed in "The Sit-In," by the closing credits, one is left wanting more.