A PATCH OF BLUE (1965) B/W widescreen 106m dir: Guy Green

w/Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Hartman, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford, Ivan Dixon, Elizabeth Fraser, John Qualen, Kelly Flynn, Debi Storm, Renata Vanni, Saverio LoMedico

A moving, well-acted film about a sensitive relationship which develops between a young blind woman and a black man. Poitier and Hartman bring moving credibility to their roles.

From Variety's contemporary review of the film: "A Patch of Blue is a touching contemporary melodrama, relieved at times by generally effective humor, about a blind white girl, rehabilitated from a dreary home by a Negro. Film has very good scripting plus excellent direction and performances, including an exceptional screen debut by Elizabeth Hartman as the gal.

"Director Guy Green adapted Elizabeth Kata's Be Ready with Bells and Drums , and the ending, while positive, isn't sudsy. Hartman gives a smash interpretation of the role, and progresses most believably from an uneducated, unwanted and home-anchored maiden to an upbeat, firmer grasp on what is to be her sightless maturity.

"Sidney Poitier is excellent as he becomes her first true friend and gives her some self-assurance. She, of course, doesn't know he is Negro."

From the Film Comment website (www.filmcomment.com), this essay about the film by Steven Mears:

"'Love is color blind' was the tagline for Guy Green's A Patch of Blue (1965), but that’s the only bromide attached to a film that eschews facile sentiment. The far superior mid-’60s interracial love story staring Sidney Poitier (in large part because he’s not being judged for suitability), A Patch of Blue traces the burgeoning affection of Selina (Elizabeth Hartman), a blind girl from a deeply dysfunctional home, and Gordon (Poitier), a realistic but compassionate office worker. Meeting in the park where she finds refuge from her abusive prostitute mother (Shelley Winters) and drunken grandfather (Wallace Ford), Selina and Gordon bond over simple acts of kindness. As their rendezvous become daily oases in their troubled lives, Selina develops romantic feelings for Gordon, whom she doesn’t realize is black --- and whose assessment of their potential as a couple is less sanguine.

"The premise --- drawn from Elizabeth Kata’s novel Be Ready with Bells and Drums, discovered by Green's wife --- presents two problematic factors at the outset. The first is whether it can truly qualify as an interracial romance if one party resists the advances of another, and the racial disparity is known only on one side. While it may not be a love story in the traditional sense, there’s more trust and tenderness on display here than is found in most cinematic treatments of amour fou --- culminating in a kiss both ingenuous and passionate. And as gracefully scripted by Green, from his own outsider vantage as a British cinematographer-turned-transatlantic filmmaker (manifested in the film’s drab kitchen sink-realist aesthetic), the racial aspect is ever-present. The glares they draw in the park are sharply felt by Gordon, who spares Selina the knowledge of further disdain, and learning of his race from her mother only seems to solidify her feelings of connection.

"That leads to the larger concern: does Selina’s blindness (like Julie’s single motherhood in One Potato[, Two Potato], or Patty Duke's extramarital pregnancy in the milestone TV movie My Sweet Charlie) reduce her intrinsic worth --- making her, in her diminished state, an appropriate love interest for a black man? Green curtails this possibility by making Selina's family, not her handicap, the source of her grief. While the screenplay attends to the world of a blind person with uncommon insight and intelligence (her anxiety over finding a restroom in strange surroundings, her alertness to the sound of screeching tires before crossing the street), it never paints her as a victim due to her sightlessness, nor as a less-than-ideal partner. Her toxic domestic life is the thing holding her back, as his protective inhibitions keep him at a remove from all those close to him. Their union, such as it is, offers not redemption or hope for society but deliverance from their lonely, circumscribed lives.

"Gordon does indeed seem estranged from the black community, as his only interactions with another person of color are with his brother Mark (Ivan Dixon), a doctor whose avowed views presage those of the Black Panther Party. 'Let whitey educate himself!' he rails at Gordon’s efforts to improve the lot of Selina, who Mark believes 'comes from a trash heap.' 'Maybe so, but she’s not trash,' retorts Gordon, stoking what is doubtless a long-standing argument, Mark’s rigid militancy refuting his brother’s pragmatic humanism.

"In a recent conversation, Green’s daughter Marilyn Feldman told me that Poitier and Dixon were 'unhappy with the dialogue in their scenes together, and offered to modify it to represent more accurately the way black people talk.' As a result, the scene feels authentically lived-in, and charged with a clash of viewpoints both actors knew well. Feldman also related that Poitier commissioned changes to the novel’s third act, presumably to leave the couple’s future open-ended.

"Early in the film, Gordon claims his favorite word is 'tolerance,' but denies that it’s his defining trait. Tolerance, the delicately devastating ending suggests, is like the patch of blue sky recalled by Selina in a hopeful reverie. It’s a faint and fleeting thing, but it’s the light in a dark world."

An Oscar went to Winters (as Hartman's sleazy mother) for Best Supporting Actress. The film was also nominated for Best Actress (Hartman), B & W Cinematography (Robert Burks), B & W Art Direction (George W. Davis, Urie McCleary, Henry Grace, Charles S. Thompson), and Original Music Score (Jerry Goldsmith).