A Patch of Blue

A Patch of Blue (1965) is an American social drama directed by Guy Green — watch it online on iFILM. Sidney Poitier and Elizabeth Hartman star in a story of friendship that crossed the colour line in the segregated United States. Shelley Winters won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role here.

Selma is eighteen, blind, barely literate, and trapped at home with a violent, alcoholic mother and a grandfather who keeps her shut away. Her one escape is a bench in the park, where she meets Gordon Ralfe, played by Poitier. She has no idea he is Black — and for her, that changes nothing. What matters is that he speaks to her like she is a person. When her mother Rose-Ann, played by Winters with raw, ugly ferocity, discovers the friendship, the confrontation is brutal.

Shot in black and white, the film makes its point without speeches or placards — just two people on a bench and the cost of being seen. That restraint is what separates it from the more didactic civil-rights pictures of its era. Watch A Patch of Blue (1965) online on iFILM.