Nurse-attired Miss Marion Whittington/Chambers (Nancy Stephens) drove up to her home (at 4946 Cypress Pond Road), where she was shocked to see it had been burglarized (or vandalized).Norman Jewison masterfully directed this murder melodrama from a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant that was based on the first of three mystery novels by John Ball (written in 1965) about a black detective named Virgil Tibbs.When he dozed, four sharp fingers of his new bladed glove poked through the driver""s seat upholstery in front of his crotch, and then Freddy""s entire arm thrust upward and clawed open his chest.His goal was to complete his high-school education as a way to improve his own destiny and help combat his community""s poverty and backward ways.