A Patch of Blue **** (1965, Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman, Wallace Ford, Ivan Dixon) – Classic Movie Review 4704

Writer/ co-producer/ director Guy Green’s 1965 racially-charged weepie drama is well meaning, conscientiously done and appealing. It was significant at the time in its exploration of racism against the backdrop of the growing US civil rights movement, though now it seems slightly corny and dated.

Elizabeth Hartman makes a sensitive film debut as an abused, uneducated blind white girl who falls in love in a racially divided America with a compassionate African American man, played by Sidney Poitier. The movie also stars Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford, and Ivan Dixon. It always hits the soft spot accurately and finally affectingly thanks to the ingratiating portrayals of the fine actors and the sensitivity of writer-director Green.

Hartman was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress and won the Golden Globe award. Hartman at 22 was the youngest Best Actress nominee ever, a record she held for ten years till 20-year-old Isabelle Adjani broke it in 1975.

However, it was Shelley Winters who scooped the film’s only Academy Award – her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar (after The Diary of Anne Frank) for her exuberant turn as Rose-Ann D’Arcey, the abusive, domineering hooker mom of blinded, uneducated white teenager Selina D’Arcey (Hartman), who is not told the skin colour of her caring African American lover Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), whom she meets in the park.

The film was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Black-and-White (George Davis, Urie McCleary, Henry Grace, Charles S Thompson), Best Cinematography Black-and-White (Robert Burks) and Best Original Music Score (Jerry Goldsmith).

Both Winters’ character Rose-Ann and Poitier’s brother Mark Ralfe (Ivan Dixon) try to stop the couple’s growing friendship. Gordon determines to help Selina to escape her poor and troubled home life. Veteran Wallace Ford is also outstanding in his final film as the girl’s grandfather, Ole Pa.

Green’s screenplay is based on Australian author Elizabeth Kata’s 1961 novel Be Ready with Bells and Drums, but given a more optimistic ending.

Also in the cast are Elisabeth Fraser, John Qualen, Keli Flynn, Debi Storm, Saverio LoMedico and Renata Vanni.

Depressed and insecure as her career declined sharply in a decade, Elizabeth Hartman took her own life at 43 on 10 June 1987 when she threw herself out of a fifth-floor apartment window.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4704

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