Monday, February 23, 2009

society's child


how is it that shelley winters was so good at playing a reprehensible person? her performance as the mother in this intimate tale of a young blind woman who becomes involved with a black man is truly awesome. she is just such an awful stupid beast that when her own father calls her 'blubber belly' it's music to your ears.
this is my personal favorite of sidney's films. the soundtrack is haunting. elizabeth hartman as the young woman blinded as a child by a drunken pick-up of her mom's is lovely. sidney's, 'gordon', is kind yet careful in a relationship that was way off limits in it's day. as always, he is the most graceful of actors in director guy green's 1965 truly great film.

1 comment:

nipper said...

i remember seeing this film at a young age and thinking this was helen keller ( circa patty duke role in film) and developed a thought that "assigned" color does not matter, if you like someone then you like someone.
years later, the song "Patches" i'm depending on you son....awakened that movie in my mind during the early 70's. I was being bused to a segragated school in rural alabama (early 70's) and trying real hard to fit it in with the majority(90% african american) during the philadelphia soul era...(goodbye american bandstand, hello soul train. I adapted, and had the opportunity to be the pathogen under the microscope deemed inferior.