Love is Color Blind

The phrase "Love is Blind" never rings more true than in Guy Green's 1965 film A Patch of Blue. The film was very controversial since it was made during the Civil Rights Era and it depicts the romance of a black man with a blind white girl. The script for the film was taken from the 1961 book Be Ready with Bells and Drums, written by Australian author Elizabeth Kata. Color was available at the time of filming, but Guy Green chose to film it in black and white, perhaps as a statement on color and race.

The story centers around Selina D'Arcey (Elizabeth Hartman) who lives with her grandfather Ole Pa (Wallace Ford) and her prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters). Selina was blinded at five years old when her father came home and found her mother in bed with another man. Selina's mother Rose-Ann threw a bottle, intended to wound her husband which instead hit her daughter on the forehead, blinding her. One of the few things Selina remembers from the days when she was able to see is "a patch of blue". Selina is expected to do all of the household chores while Rose-Ann and her fellow prostitute friend Sadie (Elisabeth Fraser) make fun of the girl. Selina helps earn income for the family by stringing beads and loves to do so in the park, where she is dropped off by either Ole Pa or neighbor Mr. Faber (John Qualen). Selina's fortunes change when she meets Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier), a black man who helps teach her all of the things she can do in spite of and to overcome her blindness. She befriends Gordon and together they talk about tolerance, the different meanings of blindness, the time one of Rose-Ann's clients rapes Selina, and life altogether. Things are going great until Sadie spies that Selina is hanging out with a black man and reports back to racist Rose-Ann. Soon, Rose-Ann and Sadie conspire to set up a brothel, using Selina is the main attraction. It is up to Gordon to save Selina and help Selina save herself.

This is a very powerful movie because of its message and the sociopolitical context in which it was first released. Scenes of the movie where Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman kiss had to be edited when the film was screened in the Deep South and the topic of interracial relationships was a very heated one. Shelley Winters was not very pleased with her role as Rose-Ann and was surprised when she one the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance, the second of Winters' two Oscars. The studio also made a short film about the decision to cast relative unknown Elizabeth Hartman in such a powerful role with powerful actors, which was titled A Cinderella Named Elizabeth. Hartman went on to have successful roles in such films as The Secret of NIMH, The Group, and You're a Big Boy Now, but died tragically after jumping from a building in Pittsburgh in 1987 after suffering from psychiatric problems.

A Patch of Blue is still widely lauded for the contribution it gave to both film and society. There are multiple reviews online that you can read to learn a little more about the film. This one comes from the film page at Turner Classic Movies. This review comes from CTDFilmFest.org. Another review can be read here, thanks to filmtracks.com, and yet another can be found here courtesy of wiman.us. This truly is a remarkable film about the power of love to defy all odds.

“Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?”

For as long as I can remember, by favorite book has always been Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. Since tonight begins Hanukkah, I was thinking about the book and the movie as well, in particular the Hanukkah scene. I have read the diary around six or seven times, have watched the movie a few times, and have seen two plays about Anne Frank. I think during this holiday season, it is important to talk about the film about Anne’s brief but inspiring life.

The diary was turned into a Pulitzer award-winning play and then was adapted by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett into a film, which was directed by George Stevens. The 1959 film, The Diary of Anne Frank, was a major project of Stevens and he put a lot of himself into telling the story. Stevens spent four years working on the film, used black and white to create more drama, and Otto Frank as well as Johannes Kleiman were consulted during the making of the film.

The role of Anne was offered to both Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. Audrey refused because she had lived in Holland during the same time as Anne and has witness the Nazi occupation and brutality first hand. She did not want to bring back old memories. Millie Perkins, instead, played Anne with Joseph Schildkraut as her father Otti, Gusti Huber as her mother Edith, and Diane Baker as her sister Margot. Shelley Winters played Mrs. Van Daan and won one of the three Oscars for the film for the supporting role. Other roles were Ed Wynn as Albert Dussell, Richard Beymer as Peter, Lou Jacobi as Mr. Van Daan, Douglas Spencer as Kraler, and Dodie Heath as Miep.

There are a plethora of reviews for the film. You can read this one, thanks to Apolloguide.com. Another comes from Altfg.com. This one comes from the Oscar Movies blog. And another great review and synopsis can be found here, thanks to beliefnet.com. If you want more information about Anne Frank, you can access the home site of the American Anne Frank Museum or the site that houses both the one of the house she hid in and the official Anne Frank website. At the bottom of this post, I will place the trailer for the 1959 film.

In one of the last pages of her diary, just before she was captured and taken away, Anne wrote: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart”. I believe this is a testament to how brave and how hopeful humanity can be, even surrounded by the most fearsome adversity and despair. No matter your religious practices, this is the spirit that the holiday season embodies. And to any Jewish readers out there, Chag Chanuka Sameach.

A Bio Pic of Biblical Proportions

With a name like The Greatest Story Ever Told, your film pretty much has to be guaranteed good. Of course, with a cast as star-studded as this one, it was pretty hard for director George Stevens and writer Henry Denker to go wrong with their 1965 biblical epic. The film was based on a book of the same name by Fulton Oursler, who wrote several novels, plays, and short stories. The film chronicles the life of Jesus of Nazareth from birth until death.

The cast, as I mentioned before, is one of the greatest assemblages of acting talent in motion pictures. The leading role of Jesus was portray by Swedish actor Max von Sydow, an acclaimed actor who has done mostly foreign language films. Michael Anderson Jr. played John the Baptist, Carroll Baker as Veronica, Pat Boone as the Young Man at the Tomb, and Charlton Heston as St. John the Baptist. Mary and Joseph were respectively played by Dorothy McGuire and Robert Loggia. I won't name every single part, but the cast list continues on with such fine actors and actresses as Claude Rains, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Ed Wynn, John Wayne, Angela Lansbury, Van Heflin, Sal Mineo,Telly Savalas, Paul Stewart, Harold J. Stone, Joseph Schildkraut, Victor Buono, Jose Ferrer, Robert Blake, Donald Pleasence, Richard Conte, Jamie Farr, David McCallum, Ina Balin, Janet Margolin, and Cyril Delevanti. This film figures in at Christmastime not just because of the Jesus element but also because of his retrospective on faith and its meaning.

Darryl F. Zanuck was the one who acquired the rights for the film from Oursler, who was then a senior editor of Reader's Digest. Zanuck, as many of you know was working for Fox and now the film is in the hands of MGM. George Stevens at the time was directed the film version of The Diary of Anne Frank (which we'll get to on Hanukkah) and since the studio wasn't doing anything with the rights, decided he wanted to produce the epic of biblical proportions. The American southwest was chosen for many of the films locations, since Stevens wanted to give a dramatic look to the film he did not think he would find in the settings of the Middle East. The film took years to right and an estimated $20 million to make. Critics were divided when the film was released, though Stevens thought the film was a masterpiece.

You can watch the film divided up into short segments here thanks to YouTube and Google Video. MGM now owns the film and has a site for it with trailers, info, and still shots from the movie, which can be found here. Some wonderful screenshots from the film can be found at the Movie Screen Shot Blog and more info and a synopsis can be found here, thanks to Mahalo.com. You can read two reviews, one from The New York Times and another from soulfoodcinema.com. And if you want to see the film on your TV rather than your computer, Turner Classic Movies is running the film on Christmas Day, which you can read about here.