TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon ~ Sidney Poitier ~ A Patch of Blue (1965)

This post is my contribution to the TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Jill of Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and Michael of ScribeHard on Film. Sidney Poitier is the featured actor on Tuesday August 7th on TCM.

If you only watch one Sidney Poitier film on Tuesday’s TCM Summer Under the Stars special, make sure it's A Patch of Blue (1965). This sensitive ground-breaking film features fine performances from Shelley Winters, then-newcomer Elizabeth Hartman and the great Sidney Poitier.

A Patch of Blue is one of those films that merits repeat viewings. Every time I watch it, I’m reminded of several things: the importance of kindness, the injustice of racial prejudice and the blindness of love.

Selina D’Arcy (Elizabeth Hartman) is a blind girl living with her mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and her grandfather Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), both of whom are consistently drunk and getting into trouble. Rose-Ann’s promiscuity has always been the source of pain and suffering for Selina. When two of Rose-Ann’s lovers get into a quarrel, a bottle of acid is thrown by accident at 5 year old Selina leading to her permanent blindness. A Patch of Blue refers to Selina’s happy memory of seeing the color blue before she went blind.

Selina is not allowed to have an education and is forced to keep the home, make dinner and work on beading necklaces and jewelry to supply more income to the family. As Rose-Ann gets older, she becomes more and more jealous of Selina’s youth and beauty and is constantly finding ways to bring her down. Then one day Selina meets Gordon Ralfe (Sidney Poitier) in the park. He’s the first person to be kind to her. Genuinely kind. He helps her with her beads, pulls a caterpillar out of her shirt, gives her pineapple juice, teaches her how to use a payphone, corrects her grammar, and more. Rose-Ann had worked so hard to keep Selina paralyzed and sheltered.  It’s much easier to control someone when you deny them the tools to defend themselves and become independent. But it only took one kind person to give Selina a new chance at life. Sidney Poitier’s Gordon is the catalyst who makes Selina’s world open up with many possibilities.

A handsome 38-year-old Sidney Poitier is a marvel to watch. He’s tall and graceful, has beautiful skin, bright eyes and a smile that could light up a room.

Sidney Poitier’s Gordon is my favorite character in the film. Gordon could have continued his walk through the park not paying any mind to Selina. Instead, he took pity on her and decided to help her out. If anything this world needs it’s more kindness. I really gravitate towards characters such as Gordon whom despite their own problems extend kindness to others in need. Gordon’s generosity towards Selina always makes me cry.

I mean c’mon! She’s got a sad bag of crackers for lunch and he takes pity on her and leads her to the local deli for corned beef sandwiches and pineapple juice. He could have just left her to her sad lunch but instead he treated to something better and taught her how to get out of the park and navigate traffic too! He doesn’t baby her. He enables her to be independent and to do things on her own. And that’s key! It’s one thing to be nice to someone and it’s another to empower them.

The film is ground-breaking because it shows, for the very first time, a kiss between a white woman and a black man. According to IMDB, this scene was cut out of versions shown in certain states in the American south because at that time miscegenation was still illegal there. To me this film is especially important because it shows how two people can fall in love regardless of race. Selina’s blindness demonstrates how love itself is blind and what’s important is who we are inside. Her naïveté about society's rules regarding race could fuel discussion of why those rules ever existed.

While it was Shelly Winters who won the Academy Award for her performance, I think there is a lot to Sidney Poitier's sensitive portrayal of Gordon Ralfe. This film made me fall in love with Sidney Poitier and I've been a happy fan ever since.

Thanks to Jill and Michael for hosting the TCM Summer Under the Stars (SUTS) blogathon and for letting me participate!

An Art Deco & Classic Hollywood Wedding

Only Saturday July 7th, 2012, I married my best friend and the love of my life Carlos. The wedding was officiated by my good friend Mark Zero.

We had our wedding at The Henderson House. It's a house built in the 1920s that is now a conference center run by Northeastern University which happens to be my alma mater. Go Huskies!

Our cake was Art Deco themed and in our colors deep pink and grey/silver. It was beautiful! Inside it was delicious vanilla cake and whipped dulce de leche filling. It was divine! The cake was designed and made by the lovely ladies at Bittersweet Boston.

Our place cards, table cards, menus and all other signage was all in Art Deco style in deep pink and grey and made by the talented Jamie of JK Design. (Hey that's me in the back ground!)

I really love how these turned out!

Instead of a traditional guest book, we had a bon voyage guest area which featured vintage style postcards which guests could fill out. My friend Haze created an Art Deco style Hawaiian themed shoe box in our wedding colors! Guests put the postcards inside the box. We had so much fun reading what folks wrote. (The "Please Take One" was for Mark's books that we were giving away later.)

In keeping with the Art Deco theme and noting that July is a hot and muggy month, each guest received a grey silk fan as a favor and to cool themselves down in Art Deco style!

I hand-stickered each of the fans with a label that read our names and the wedding date. A little touch of pink with the champagne flutes was just enough to use that wedding color and not make the fan too girly.

That tent in the back was for smoking cigars later in the evening.

We got married underneath this arch.

We reserved a chair for Carlos' mom who passed away several years ago.

Now on to the reception! We had 8 dining tables and each had it's own real-life Classic Hollywood couple. I picked photographs of couples on their wedding day and my friend Lisa R. designed them to fit 4 X 6 silver Art Deco style frames and she made pink and grey Art Deco style banners with the couples names on them! She did a wonderful job. And special thanks to Eric (@_EricShepherd) who helped me a lot in coming up with the couples to be featured!

Table #1 got Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

Table #2 featured Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer (my personal favorite!)

Table # 3 featured Ricardo Montalban and Georgiana Young. Technically this picture is of them at a party but it looked almost like Georgiana was in a wedding dress so I threw it in!

Table #4 featured Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall

Table #5 featured Jack Lemmon and Felicia Farr

Table #6 featured Gloria and Jimmy Stewart

Table # 7 featured Peter Shaw and Angela Lansbury

Table #8 featured Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly

We had a wonderful wedding!

 If you guys aren't terribly bored by these photos, I'll make sure to share a couple professional ones on here in the coming weeks, once I get the okay from the photographer.

5th Anniversary Giveaway Winner!

The winner of the Out of the Past ~ A Classic Film Blog 5th Anniversary Giveaway is...

CONNIE

Congratulations Connie and thank you to everyone who entered. Here is Connie's entry for the contest (the prompt was to either tell me about your favorite classic Hollywood couple or your favorite wedding-themed classic movie):

"Happy Anniversary! My favorite is 'The Quiet Man', with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara from 1952. It's got everything from drama, comedy, amazing scenery, great acting, and a wonderful love story between two stubborn, loving, lost souls who truly need each other. Conspiring friends do their part to help this couple overcome their own stubbornness and family obstacles, so that they learn not only to love each other, but more importantly, to trust in each other. ♥ - Connie