Shelley Winters is a big old meanie, and proud of it

5/3/13, A Patch of Blue, Best Supporting Actress, 1965

I really wish the supposed 'classic' movie channels would actually play more classic movies, or at least movies pre-1990 with great actors and a good story. Maybe I should just start my own channel.

I have heard of A Patch of Blue and knew the basic story, but have never seen it before. The movie stars Elizabeth Hartman as Selina D'Arcey as a blind girl living with her crazy, mean mother, Rose-Ann, played by the one and only Shelley Winters, who won the Best Supporting Actress for being a big ol' biach. You would never guess they were mother and daughter because Selina always calls her mother by her first name. It reminded me of the mother-daughter relationship in Precious, which is so hard to conceive, and yet it happens. The whole family is one big dysfunction junction, with Rose-Ann's father 'Ol' Pa' living with them as well, and he is a drunk; and he and Rose-Ann take turns yelling at each other and calling names. Ol' Pa does have a soft spot for his granddaughter, but is pretty inept at really helping her. Selina is forced to do all the chores and bead work for extra money. She is very sheltered, and doesn't go to school, or outside at all for that matter. She convinces her bead salesman to take her to the park, which she loves. On her second visit, she meets Gordon Ralfe, played by America's treasure, Sidney Poitier, a friendly stranger who slowly teaches Selina about life in the outside world. The elephant in the room is that Selina is white and Gordon is black, this is 1960s America and it turns out that Rose-Ann is a flaming racist (amongst other things). Gordon eventually gets Selina away from the wicked witch and into a school for the blind. Is this the best movie ever? Nope. Do I care about that? Nope. It's a good movie with some really good performances by a cast that includes Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters for goodness sake. Shelley Winters was really good, I did want to punch her in the nose (kind of like Mo'Nique in Precious, another great movie with great performances). Shelley Winters also won for her supporting role in The Diary of Anne Frank; no question she does hysterical better than anyone else. Poitier has been in so many great movies, To Sir, With Love (great song by Lulu); In the Heat of the Night ('they call me Mister Tibbs'), The Defiant Ones, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn), and the list goes on. He's just awesome. I think he would have made a great Jedi instructor (think about it, wouldn't that have been cool?). And Elizabeth Hartman as Selina; she was a young actress from Youngstown, Ohio. I first heard of her as the lead voice in The Secret of N.I.M.H as Mrs. Brisby, a field mouse (this is one of my favorite animated films).

As an aside, but apropos to the blindness of Selina, one of my history professors in college was blind. She earned her PhD, specializing in the French Revolution, which means she had to understand French, she may have read French in Braille (I don't know for sure). I was always impressed at what she was able to accomplish. I worked as her assistant one summer on research she was doing on the pacifist movement in the early 20th century. Having a disability certainly did not let that stop Dr. Howard.