A Patch of Blue

Starring: Elizabeth Hartman, Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters
Man, what a beautiful film! This one came out the year I was born. And although the presentation of the subject matter is somewhat dated, unfortunately we haven't come as far as we ought in 40 years, Baby!
Elizabeth Hartman plays Selina D'Arcy, a young blind woman, who happens to be white. Shelley Winters is her sleazy, controlling mother. Sidney Poitier is Gordon Raife, a sympathetic man who happens to be black. He befriends Hartman's character when she is sitting in the park making necklaces from colored beads to sell and her tray turns over. He sees her worth and wants to help her expand their horizons. And they start to fall in love. It's a beautiful story and makes me cry.
And the "crying shame" of the whole matter is that race is a point of contention. It doesn't matter to the two characters, although the more worldly Gordon realizes that it is a problem to others in society, including Selina's mother Roseanne (Winters) and his brother Mark (Ivan Dixon.) Roseanne refers to Gordon as a "nigger" and "black buck" while Mark, a doctor, questions Gordon's blackness for his sympathy and affections towards a girl who is "white trash."
While interracial relationships aren't met with the violent opposition today that they were met with 40 years ago, the same basic prejudiced attitudes, sadly, haven't changed much.
The bitter, cynical wretch in me whose belief that love conquers all died when it was drowned in a vat of acid many years ago and comes back from the grave for the sole purpose of taunting me says that once Selina got on the bus to go to the school for the blind that Gordon had arranged for her to attend, the two of them grew apart and Gordon found a nice professional black woman to marry while Selina became a spinster teacher, gaining fulfillment doing good for others but never finding love. Not exactly a death sentence, but pretty cut, dry and sickeningy realistic. Be still, my mummified heart.
The Hopeless Idiot Moron Who Got A Railroad Spike Driven Through Her Frontal Lobe and That's Why She's So Stupid in me contends that while Selina was attending school, Gordon visited her every weekend, bringing her flowers and taking her to romantic dinners and because her confidence grew, her beauty shone through more and more, and that while she was attending college for her degree in education, they got married and lived happily ever after.
Ahhh...
Even my mummified heart feels warm and squishy at that idea!
I would like to hope that everybody finds love.
Except me.
Because if it tries to come in my house I'm gonna kill the bastard with my death ray!
Needless to say, Cupid and I are not on speaking terms.
But because hope and stupidity both spring eternal...
And this is a great film that is relevant even 40 years later...
I give it a five-star Celluloid Classic rating!
Peace,
The Cheesemeister