A Patch of Blue

Plot synopsis:
Selina D'Arcey (Elizabeth Hartman) is a blind girl living in a city apartment with her prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and grandfather Ole Pa (Wallace Ford). She strings beads to supplement her family's small income and spends most of her time doing chores. Her mother is abusive and Ole Pa is an alcoholic. Selina has no friends, rarely leaves the apartment, and has never received an education.
Selina convinces her grandfather to take her to the park, where she happens to meet Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), an educated and soft-spoken black man working night shifts in an office. The two quickly become friends, meeting at the park almost every day. Gordon learns that she was blinded at the age of five when Rose-Ann threw chemicals on her while attempting to hit her husband, and also that she was raped by one of Rose-Ann's "boyfriends".
Rose-Ann's friend, Sadie, is also a prostitute, and while lamenting the loss of her youth, she realizes that Selina can be useful in their business. Subsequently, Rose-Ann and Sadie decide to move into a better apartment, leave Ole Pa and force Selina into prostitution.
In the meantime, Gordon has contacted a school for the blind, which is ready to take Selina. While Rose-Ann is out, Selina runs away to the park and, with some difficulty, meets Gordon. She tells Gordon about Rose-Ann's plan, and he assures her that she will be leaving for school in a few days. Finding Selina missing from the apartment, Rose-Ann takes Ole Pa to the park and confronts Gordon. Despite Rose-Ann's resistance, Gordon manages to take Selina away, and Ole Pa stops Rose-Ann, telling her that Selina is not a child anymore.
At Gordon's house, Selina asks Gordon to marry her, to which Gordon replies that there are many types of love, and she will later realize that their relationship will not work. Selina tells him that she loves him, and knows that he is black, and that it does not matter to her. He then tells her they will wait one year to find out if their love will lead to marriage. Meanwhile, a bus arrives to pick up Selina and both said goodbye. Gordon wanted to give a music box that his grandmother gave him to Selina but the bus already left so he went back to his apartment.

Tags: melodrama

Review:
Young Elizabeth Hartman (Oscar-nominated) is blind and has been a part of a household where she has been treated like a second-rate stranger and outcast by her cold mother (Shelley Winters is a smashing Oscar-winning turn).
She might not have the use of her eyesight, yet she recognizes kindness when it comes her way without making judgment on the only true friend she encounters in her life.Gordon, the nice black man who stumbles upon Selina in the park, is amazed how no one has ever paid attention to her.
Shelley Winters, who won the Oscar for this film doesn't have much to do, and even though she does good work, one has to be leery of those Academy members that voted her the best supporting actress of that year when she deserved accolades for many other excellent contributions to films she did before this one."A Patch of Blue" owes a great deal to its director, Guy Green, who fought to make the film and for having Elizabeth Hartman in it..
Unlike most romances, it manages to be touching without being melodramatic, and unlike most social commentaries, it subtly makes its points without manipulation or a hidden agenda.It is the story of how Selina, a blind girl who is verbally and sometimes physically abused by her mother, discovers her independence with the help of a young, black professional, Gordon.
This beautiful, intelligent, heartbreaking film tells the story of Selina (Elizabeth Hartman), a young blind woman who is isolated from the outside world by her vulgar, abusive mother (Shelley Winters, who won her second Oscar for this role).
Poitier is terrific as the insightful Gordon, and Shelley Winters gives a blistering portrayal as Selina's abusive, bigoted mother (Winters won Best Supporting Oscar)..
It had been a long time since I saw such an honest, sensitively-made film, and it really brings to mind that old statement "They don't make 'em like they used to." How refreshing to see a film that handles potentially mawkish, TV movie-of-the-week style material (blind white girl falls in love with sighted black man) with sophistication, grace and lack of sentimentality.
Elizabeth Hartman is very sympathetic in this role as a blind teenager, growing up in a borderline white-trash home, with an alcoholic grandfather,and promiscuous down-at-heel mother,capably portrayed by Shelley Winters.Sidney Poitier delivers another effective performance here,as a sympathetic friend to Selena (Hartman) who tries to help better her life,even as his brother,a med student tells him to forget it, Selena is a hopeless case from "a human trash heap".The performances are touching and understated as one feels what it may be like to live as a disabled blind woman.
Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman -an actress I had not noticed before- give heartfelt warm performances .Nothing spectacular,the story goes straight to the heart.Selina is a poor girl who 's got nothing but a box of beads .Her family treats her like dirt ,and nobody cares for her ,nobody thinks about her education .She's blind ,so what's the point of sending her to school?Unlike the Keller family who poisoned Helen with protection ("Miracle Worker"),Selina's family left the poor thing to her own devices .Enter Sidney Poitier!In 1965,the film was revolutionary:one would have expected a little blind black girl and a white schoolteacher (for instance) and it's a black man who will take care of a white young girl!Gordon displays pedagogic skills a teacher could envy.But most of all,his lessons try to teach happiness to Selina: these foolish things,such as eating a roast beef sandwich in the park,sipping pineapple juice,shopping in a supermarket ,listening to a music box and more serious things like simply learning to cross the street.
Poitier was his usual excellent self as Gordon, and Shelley Winters put on an outstanding performance as Selina's mother Rose-Ann. Rose- Ann was abusive toward Selina, treated her more like a servant than a daughter with a barely disguised contempt.
It stars Sidney Poitier as Gordon, a black man who ends up befriending young blind woman Selina D'Arcy (Elizabeth Hartman).
Accidentally deprived of her vision by her prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Oscar-winner for Best Actress, Shelley Winters) at the age of five, Selina spends her days either home by herself or alone in the park, placing beads on strings for her mother.
The real standout here is Elizabeth Hartman as Selina, one of the best performances by a young actress, and her Oscar nomination was well-deserved.
It's clear that in this day and age, there aren't more people making movies like Guy Green who know how to make classics such as his "A Patch of Blue."10/10.
This is another film I missed out on countless times over the years before acquiring it, and I now chose to watch it during this year's Oscar season, since it emerged the winner of the Best Supporting Actress statuette for Shelley Winters' typically raucous performance; interestingly, though billed after her, Elizabeth Hartman was nominated in the Best Actress category (but she is clearly the protagonist here, even more so than nominal lead Sidney Poitier)!
While it received three other well-deserved nods for Robert Burks' expressive cinematography (in monochrome and widescreen), Jerry Goldsmith's beautiful score (perhaps more than the movie was worthy of!) and the art direction/set decoration, it is telling that this fared rather better at the Golden Globes (despite Winters herself not being nominated!) – where Hartman won for Most Promising Newcomer and the picture itself, Poitier and Guy Green for both script and direction also got recognition.The narrative involves an uneducated blind girl (also emotionally abused by her mother and perennially drunk grandfather Wallace Ford) being befriended by an erudite black man she meets at the park.
Following a distinguished career as a cinematographer (being rewarded with an Oscar for lensing David Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS {1946}), Green's directorial output started off modestly but gradually grew in stature and respect; he demonstrated a particular affinity with 'social problem' dramas: apart from the film under review (typical of this era in cinema, the meaning of its retitling from the source material is only casually referenced!), he dealt with the stigmas society places on being a sex offender and mental health in THE MARK (1961) and LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (1962; another movie I ought to get down and watch one of these days) respectively..
A Patch of Blue brings fine performances from Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Hartman, and Shelley Winters.
Continuing the reviews of African-Americans in film in chronological order for Black History Month, we're now at 1965 when Sidney Poitier stars as Gordon Ralfe in this movie about his mentoring a poor blind young woman whom he meets one day when she comes to the park for the first time.
Her name is Selina D'Arcey (Elizabeth Hartman) and she has had to endure an abusive relationship with her mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and an alcoholic grandfather known as Old Pa (Wallace Ford).
Shelley Winters deserved an Academy Award as the hideous mother of Selina, the blind girl played beautifully by Elizabeth Hartman.
Of course, Sidney Poitier plays the African American man in a time of civil rights and racism where he befriends the lonely blind girl, Selina, in the park.
I've seen it over a dozen times and I still haven't had my fill.Twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Hartman made her film debut as the lead in A Patch of Blue, and she was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars in 1966.
He's so incredibly sweet and kind, but he's also reserved because he suspects if Elizabeth knew the color of his skin, she wouldn't want to associate with him anymore.Shelley Winters, in her own unique brashness that makes her utterly unlikable yet fascinating to watch, plays an ignorant, racist woman so convincingly, it'll be tough to believe her in any other role if you've never seen her before.
The story of A PATCH OF BLUE has its immediate signifier of a tale of woe, a 17-year-old white blind-girl Selina D'Arcey (Hartman), living with her heinous mother Rose-Ann (Winters) and drunkard grandpa Old Pa (Ford) in a tiny apartment, doing all the chores and extra beadwork under the tyranny of Rose-Ann, there is no light in her life, she has received no education, never ever heard of Braille, even her meagre request of going out to the park nearby to finish her beadwork has been bluntly spurned by her mother.Thankfully, Old Pa is not pure evil like Rose-Ann, he brings her out to the park, leaves her there under a tree, and would pick her up later that day on his way back, usually completely plastered.
yes, Rose-Ann, her own mother.Right in the park, she meets a kind stranger, Gordon Ralfe (Poitier), whose affable presence and obliging gestures light up Selina's spirit from her wretched domestic tangle, he helps her organise the beads to accelerate her work, offers her pineapple juice which she has never drunk before, and thoughtfully informs her where is the nearest lady room, a cordial friendship kick-starts, but little does she know, Gordon is a black man.During their regular park meetings, Gordon takes her to walk around the neighbourhood, to establish her sense of orientation, teaches her how to cross the zebra crossing, they shop together in the supermarket and cook lunch in his apartment.
The scenario is highly dramatised, but in light of Green's discernment, the narrative never falters into something mawkish or overripe.The late Elizabeth Hartman (who woefully committed suicide in 1987 at the age of 43) was the youngest actress Oscar-nominated for BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE at that time (a record would be superseded a decade later by Isabelle Adjani in François Truffaut's THE STORY of ADELE H 1975), in her poignant debut, her rendition of a blind girl is simply sympathy-arousing, and she shows no cold-feet against a spontaneously charismatic Poitier, whose righteous sense of justice is seething with Gordon's favourite word - tolerance, they converge upon as a scintillating duo on screen, by virtue of Green's dispassionate script, their scenes together radiate warmth, tenderise and vigour.
And, being not heavy-handed with the racial card, the film can find more strength in its reverberations with today's audience.Shirley Winters wins her second Oscar in her turn as Rose-Ann, she is an out-and-out white-trash monster, it is a showy role, and understandably, she would not disappoint, every time the shot cuts to the dreary apartment where Rose-Ann materialises herself along with her hapless daughter, a gnawing worry emerges from our hearts, one might wonder why in the first place, Rose-Ann is outlined as such an atrocious mother, unrepentant, self-loathing and there is not an inkling of humanity in her, is there a blatant misogyny lurking here?
Selina D'Arcey (Elizabeth Hartman) is the long suffering blind daughter of her mean-spirited prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters).
A Patch Of Blue is dated very much like that other Sidney Poitier movie, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, a milestone and daring for its time, but old fashioned today.
But that was about as much as America could handle back then.Newcomer Elizabeth Hartman plays the blind and childlike Selena Darcy living with her white trash mother Shelley Winters and alcoholic grandfather Wallace Ford.
When she decides one day to go to the park for a bit of fresh air, she meets up with Sidney Poitier, an office worker who also likes the park during the day as a change from his night job.Hartman's been blind since the age of five, the result of Winters throwing a caustic substance at her husband during a fight and hitting the child.
Infatuated with its characters, so much so that it's unafraid to show them at their best and worst, the film follows Selina D'Arcey (Elizabeth Hartman), a young blind girl living with her prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and her alcoholic grandfather Pa (Wallace Ford) in a cramped urban apartment.
One day while sitting in the park, she meets Gordon Ralf (Sidney Poitier), a black office worker who Selina claims "sounds like the radio." Selina takes a liking to Gordon's soft-spoken and calm nature, as he simply sits and talks to her, and the two wind up spending days on end drinking pineapple juice with Gordon acclimating her to the bustle of the city streets.An utterly adorable scene comes when Gordon takes Selina shopping and has her ride on the front of his shopping cart, racing her down aisles of soup, detergent, and ice cream, picking out her favorites and reading her the labels, essentially giving her the grand tour of a supermarket.
These are the wholesome and endearing scenes in a film that doesn't feel the need to incessantly win its audience over by harping on the love these two characters obviously feel for one another, nor does it need to embellish mawkishness with empty orchestration playing over passionate lovemaking.Obviously, race is a large element in A Patch of Blue, but it's actually amazing how director Guy Green and cinematographer Robert Burks cleverly downplay that narrative element.
This story would be very different if Selina could see, as her mother and grandfather's conservative view of black people would've made her simply turn the other cheek had she actually seen Gordon in the park that day.
The screenplay is gifted with such talent on both the leading and supporting ends, with Hartman carrying much of the film's weight on her shoulders as she creates a believable character, and Poitier being constantly likable and amiable in his presence in Selina's life and as a soul with a great deal on his mind, as well.
For that matter, the sassy and mean-spirited Hartman and the utterly incorrigible Ford give the most contemptible performances that I've seen from this era, and transcend the conventional ideas of supporting roles based on how much they can infuriate the viewer.A Patch of Blue is a wonderful romance film; I'd even go as far as to say that it's better than Poitier's most renowned film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
It's just present enough to make you think, but just subtle enough to make you forget, and therein lies the delicate beauty of such a romantic and earnest film.Starring: Elizabeth Hartman, Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, and Wallace Ford.
I saw this beautiful, effecting film many, many years ago and remembered being so haunted by Elizabeth Hartman's performance as the fragile, lonely Selena and her horrible circumstances in a squalid, one-room rat trap she shares with her shrill mother and drunken grandfather.
I shied away from watching it today on Turner Classic Movies, but was drawn in anyway by the irresistible story of a blind girl finding freedom and affection with a kind black man, played with gentle grace by the always outstanding Sidney Poitier.
And yet if you cut it some slack, remember the time it was made and don't try to update it in your head, this is a great film.Two outstanding lead performances from Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman.
In one of the many movies showing him as a morally firm black man, Sidney Poitier plays Gordon Ralfe, who develops a relationship with blind white girl Selina D'Arcy (Elizabeth Hartman) - much to the chagrin of her racist mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters).Winters, who died today, won her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "A Patch of Blue".
A wonderful 1965 film dealing with racism, blindness and a memorable spirit.Elizabeth Hartman, whose tragic suicide years later deprived us of an outstanding talent, gives a strong performance as the blind daughter, blinded by a bigoted mother,(Oscar winner, Shelley Winters, who in a fit of rage, through something at a man that missed him but hit the daughter.Winters, as Roseann, is the embodiment of bigotry.
Screaming, filthy looking, and a racist all the way, Winters captivated audiences while receiving her second supporting actress, the first being for "The Diary of Anne Frank."In a chance meeting, the Hartman character meets a kindly black man, well played by Sidney Poitier who befriends her.
Starring Elizabeth Hartman as Selina D'Arcy, a young blind woman who has been so continually abused by her mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and so ignored by her alcoholic grandfather Ole Pa (Wallace Ford) that she doesn't know any other way of life.
Elizabeth Hartman was heartbreaking as the young blind woman, Selina; and, Sidney Poitier was ever stylish as Gordon Ralfe.
Elizabeth Hartman won a Best Actress Oscar nomination as Selina, a girl blinded at a young age.
This film basked in that aspect as Poitier befriends a blind, poor white girl, marvelously played by the late Elizabeth Hartman, and shows her there's more to her life than being at the servitude of others.
Hard-luck case Elizabeth Hartman is not only blind but living with a monster of a mama (Shelley Winters, playing a shrew-of-all-shrews, and winning a Supporting Oscar as "Rose-Ann" years before her TV role as Roseanne's grandma).
See A PATCH OF BLUE for Shelley Winters' Oscar-winning performance as a slattern who horribly abuses her young daughter, blinding her at an early age and physically assaulting her as she grows into a beautiful woman.
It's one of my favorite movies (if not THE favorite) and I never tire of watching it.Elizabeth Hartman should have won the Oscar for her role as Selina D'Arcy.
Nobody does unsympathetic like Shelley Winters, also stars Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman.
This time she plays the unsympathetic role of a white trash mother to a sightless 18 year old daughter, played by Elizabeth Hartman (who earned her only Oscar nomination as Best Actress), whom she blinded!Sidney Poitier plays the man who befriends Hartman's character, and helps her to "see" a new life filled with wonder and kindness.
Despite the injury which blinded her, her sexual assault and the way she is treated Selina remains kind and gentle, she isn't nasty or bitter like her mother.Selina (Elizabeth Hartman)is a blind teenager who lives in a small apartment with her mother Rose-Ann(Shelley Winters)and her grandfather ole pa(Wallace Ford).
Winters' "Best Supporting Actress" honors were certainly well deserved.********* A Patch of Blue (12/10/65) Guy Green ~ Elizabeth Hartman, Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford.