A Patch of Blue
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Movie Reviews of A Patch of Blue
Movie Review: Sweet, thoughtful, moving drama
Summary: 4 Stars
I rented this thinking it was "A Place in the Sun" (also with Shelley Winters)and so it took me a bit to not keep trying to work that story line into this one (when is he going to push Shelley off a boat, I kept wondering?):) Anyway, once I adjusted to the fact that this is a movie about an abused, lonely blind girl befriended by a black man, I found myself entranced with the lovely tale of friendship that forms under mutual adversity. Gordon (Sidney Poitier)helps blind Selina move towards a life of independence and freedom from her mean, domineering mother (Winters); Selina offers Gordon love and friendship in a biased, racist world. Takes no cheap shots and offers no simplistic answers and is even better becaus of that. Touching and disturbing both. Well worth locating and watching.Movie Review: Not Really Convinced..
Summary: 3 Stars
I absolutely love films from this time period, and Sidney Poitier is clearly one of the most versatile and gifted actors of our time. That said, I'm not really sure what to think about this film. The scenes with Shelley Winters were raw and captivating, but somehow Poitier and Hartman's characters were a little too simplistically acted and (I'm REALLY SORRY Mr. Poitier) almost melodramatic. Regardless, I was hooked and watched the entire film (the soundtrack is absolutely breathtaking) but I definitely cringed on a few of the scenes. Check out "The Defiant Ones" for a better performance.Movie Review: Racial melodrama!
Summary: 5 Stars
This drama only can be understood with historic glasses. We are in the middle of the bloody and terrible racial conflicts and this drama tends to show the lightened side of the coin. A blind woman , her overprotective mother and her black boyfriend conform the dramatic triangle in this paced movie loaded of mankind and noblesse.
Poitier and Winters are perfect.
Movie Review: A patch of black (recommended)
Summary: 5 Stars
Raised by a prostitute, parental neglect robs juvenile Selina (Elizabeth Hartman) of true love and a moral foundation in childhood. One day she stumbles upon a patch of black (Gordon) largely different from the darkness with which she is accustomed to, growing up blind. He describes for her a new world with blue skies, education, purpose, and love. She mistakes his concern and friendship for carnal love which makes Gordon's (Sidney Poitier) challenge to assist all the more difficult, especially considering the racial divide of the time.
Movie quote: "I'm sorry. You were much sinned against."
Movie Review: Green and "Blue"
Summary: 4 Stars
Astoundingly enough, director Guy Green is still with us and at age 92 his memories of making A PATCH OF BLUE are still crisp, almost visionary. Usually I skip DVD commentary by directors and crew, preferring just to experience the picture without someone yakking off screen, but here it is worth a second viewing to understand the frustrations and finally the rewards Green (and producer Pandro Berman) faced in filming the novel, BE READY WITH BELLS AND DRUMS by Elizabeth Kata. Though set in the deep South, BE READY was written by an Australian author who had never set foot in the USA!
She did a great job, but Green and Berman shelved the depressing vigilance ending of the novel and tried to tailor it for Sidney Poitier's personality. At the time that screen image was of the perfect man who just happened to be black. Kindly, radiantly handsome, strong, athletic, musical, a genius, Poitier's image was carved in stone at this point. His interest in little Selena is painted as the gesture of a great human being for one of the poor unfortunate ones. In return Elizabeth Hartman gives it all she's got. I was reminded often of the scenes in Chaplin's City Lights, where the Little Tramp falls in love with a blind girl and hustles like mad to earn enough money to finance an operation that will cure her but which will inevitably destroy her love for him once she sees what he actually looks like!
Green also directed three US movies in the following years, none of which have arrived yet on DVD, and barely even on video, but all of them worthy of DVD treatment (hopefully with his memories attached): PRETTY POLLY with Hayley Mills, ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH with Melina Mercouri, David Janssen and Alexis Smith, and the incredible THE MAGUS, which is like BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS taken straight. Release them at once, film czars!