Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

HotToastyRag A Patch of Blue is one of my favorite classic movies. There are so many wonderful elements to the film: a tragic script, fantastic acting, family tensions, a beautiful romance, suspense, humor, social commentary, fitting music, and above all, heart. There's so much heart in this film it'll be impossible for you to remain dry-eyed. But, although it is a heavy drama, it's not so upsetting you won't want to watch it over and over. 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. It was a terribly competitive year, with Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music and Julie Christie in Darling as her main competition. I'll leave it to you to pick the most deserving performance of the three, but it's a very tough decision. I would have given the gold to Elizabeth.Elizabeth plays a young blind girl, and to make her eyes look sufficiently damaged to the audience, she wore special contacts—but they actually interfered with her ability to see clearly! She lives with her crass and cruel mother Shelley Winters, and Shelley's alcoholic father Wallace Ford. Elizabeth is constantly verbally abused, and she believes the insults her mother flings at her, so she sees no problem with acting as the housekeeper, cook, and laundress, even though she's unappreciated. She also strings beads, which bring in a meager side income for the household, and on sunny days, Wallace Ford takes her to the park so she can enjoy the fresh air while working. One day, she meets a kind man, and a slow friendship builds.Sidney Poitier plays the nice man in the park. Elizabeth is extremely ignorant, and as she and Sidney become friends, he helps educate her, from correcting her grammar to helping her survive better in her blind world. If you don't fall in love with Sidney Poitier after watching A Patch of Blue, you must have lousy taste. 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. You might want to try A Place in the Sun or Night of the Hunter to see her in a softer role first before this harsh character becomes etched in your mind. She won an Oscar for her performance, but Sidney Poitier wasn't even nominated. Maybe the Academy wasn't ready to honor an interracial romance; in some Southern states, some of the scenes were cut from the theatrical screenings.I can't stress enough how wonderful this film is. If you've ever felt alone in the world and ached for just a small gesture of kindness, you'll love it. If you're a hopeless romantic, you'll love it. If you appreciate movies with fantastic acting, or are a Sidney Poitier fan, or are looking for a new celebrity boyfriend, you'll love it. Just watch it. You'll love it.

Maddyclassicfilms A Patch of Blue is directed by Guy Green, is written by Guy Green, is based on the novel by Elizabeth Kata, has music by Jerry Goldsmith and stars Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters.A Patch of Blue is one of the saddest and yet uplifting films I've ever seen. Selina has suffered so much and her mother is endlessly cruel to her and treats her like a servant instead of her daughter. 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). Rose-Ann is nasty and cruel to her daughter and makes her do all the house work. Selina can manage very well around the apartment considering her impairment but struggles when she is outside. Her grandfather often takes her to the local park and leaves her there while he goes drinking.While she is in the park one day she meets kind office worker Gordon Ralfe(Sidney Poitier). Gordon befriends her and teaches her how manage to get around outside by herself, as the two spend more time together Selina falls in love with him unaware that he is a black man. Gordon comes to realise she is developing romantic feelings for him and he knows that given the time they live in, such a relationship would be dangerous for them and would sadly make them hated by some people. Selina isn't aware of racism and doesn't understand why some people are hated because of their skin colour.This is such a sad film, your heart breaks for Selina so many times and you admire the fact that her difficult life hasn't broken her emotionally, she remains positive despite her past. Both Poitier and Hartman are superb and their shared scenes together are so genuine, you believe their friendship. Poitier is very good as the outgoing Gordon who can't comprehend Selina's life and seeks to change it for her. He portrays this mans kindness so well and also how sad he is when he learns what Selina has suffered.Hartman is unforgettable as Selina and she was nominated for the best actress Oscar, sadly she lost and that is a real shame because her performance is so strong. Hartman tragically committed suicide in 1987, a sad loss of such a talented actress.Shelley Winters won the best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of the mother from hell. Rose-Ann is tough talking and vulgar and Winters portrays her so convincingly that she is scary.Jerry Goldsmith's score is beautiful and sounds like a lullaby.

Steve Pulaski I've long had a fondness for interracial relationships depicted in films largely because I feel that not only are they an unsung element in Hollywood films, but they also show often show a relationship comprised of two people needing to go the extra mile to make everything work. That includes overcoming obvious societal prejudices and potential opposition from both parties of the family members. The result, if it can survive a plethora of turbulence, both unforeseen and foreseen, could end up being a very meaningful relationship that really tests limits, at the same times, sanctions a bond that can, in turn, be incorruptible.Such a bond is portrayed in A Patch of Blue, a wonderfully meaningful romantic film that is as sad as it is lovable. 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. Her job is to string beads together in order to contribute to her family's meager income, which she does when she's not doing her chores.Selina's life is confined to the physical abuse (which lead to her being blind after a fight with her mother and grandfather turned brutal) and verbal torment, rarely leaving the apartment unless she begs a local man to take her to the park, where she can enjoy fresh air and sunshine. She winds up striking an agreement with Pa to allow her to spend her days in the park if she can string many beads together. 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. Being the film is shot in black and white, and being that color film was widely available, this was undoubtedly a conscious decision, Burks does a nice job of not lingering on Gordon's blackness and Green, who also serves as the film's writer, does a nice job of constantly emphasizing that these two individuals come from widely different backgrounds. Even given the time this film was made, 1965, where America was deeply invested in furthering the civil rights movement, this film never feels the need to play on the subversion of its story, and simply regards this as a love story between two people.Now, to state the obvious once more, this is because of Selina's blindness. 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. For that matter, if she could see, Gordon wouldn't have ever needed to stop and see her in the first place; she would've been keeping to herself, or maybe even have sneered at him, leading Gordon to internalize his notions of tolerance once again.Regardless, Green handles this potentially challenging and divisive film like it's no challenge at all. 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 deeper, more predicated on honest emotion, and effectively handles race because it doesn't make it the core of the film in a discernibly obvious way. 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. Directed by: Guy Green.

mark.waltz A young blind girl (Elizabeth Hartman) finds out the truth about who is really blind in this social drama where color schemes mean nothing to her, even though she was raised by an extremely racist mother. She doesn't know green, only blue as the color of the sky, one of her few memories of when she had vision. Her world with hateful mama Shelley Winters is made a little nicer when a kind black man (Sidney Poitier) befriends her in the park. Portier's worldly young man is the perfect example of a heart as big as all outdoors.Sometimes certain movies touch you so deeply that memories of them resonate as a childhood into adulthood. This is one of them for me, one of the few adult movies my parents had me watch as a child to teach me the absurdities of racism and what it was really all about. I also remembered, more sweetly, the oddly shaped cannister of pineapple juice Poitier gave to Hartman, as well as the beads she strung together to make a living, and the joy he brought to her by just spending most of his free time with her. I also distinctly remembered the evil character Winters portrayed, a far cry from some of the obnoxious but basically decent characters she had already created. One of the best actresses of the 50's and 60's who bravely unleashed the soul of a woman who should never have been a mother, Winters would remain the epitome of the mother from hell, only equaled recently by Monique in "Precious". She is basically "Mommie Dearest" on acid.Veteran actor Wallace Ford is excellent in the pathetic role of Winters' drunken father, a man who obviously hates his daughter so much yet has little compassion for the granddaughter who adores him. If Winters wasn't blowzy enough, there's Elisabeth Fraser as her equally nasty friend. Those two women together are a double dose of hatred, a 60's version of Hitler and Mussolini. With 30's veteran stars Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell playing nicer versions of these types of characters, it is very interesting to see the antithesis of them here.Hartman's explosion out of frustration is a chilling scene, as is the fight scene when Winters sees Poitier and Hartman together. She gets into a fight with Hartman that leads into a throwing match with Ford that has a humorous and ironic conclusion. The public reaction to Winters' confrontation with Poitier in the park is priceless. While I would have preferred that the relationship between Poitier and Hartman be one of understanding devoted friends, I came to accept Hartman's growing love for Poitier (and vice versa) as one they couldn't control.