SIDNEY POITIER

 

SIDNEY POITIER

Have you ever had a day that started out ordinary, and then all on its own, transformed into a time that would become unforgettable?  That happened to me one Saturday in 1966 when I was hanging out on Fourth Street in downtown Louisville with some friends. There were no malls in those days, and Fourth Street was the place to go if you wanted to shop for goods at upscale department stores, find bargains at small boutiques, or grab a burger at a soda fountain. The day was warm and bright, causing the sidewalks to be crowded with girls like me looking to find that last-minute outfit and fans patiently standing in long queues in front of the Rialto Theater anxious to ask Alfie what life was all about or swing down the street with Georgie Girl.  It had been over a year since the Gulf of Tonkin incident and President Johnson was escalating the war in Vietnam, so there were also countless soldiers from Fort Knox reveling in having the day off.

On that particular afternoon, we stopped into Woolworths to eat after spending the morning frittering away our babysitting money on items we desperately wanted but didn’t really need.  While we were excitedly discussing our purchases and commenting on all the cute guys loitering around the shopping district, the lunch counter became wondrously silent as everyone around us left off of their conversations and fixated on the sedate black man wearing sunglasses and a perfectly pressed business suit who had just stepped through the door, accompanied by a group of similarly attired young men.  “What’s going on?” I asked no one in particular.

 “That’s A.D. King,” the woman in the booth behind ours replied as she strained to see better. 

“Who?” I asked.

“Why, Reverend King’s brother,” she answered, her tone much like that of a teacher who’d just been asked by a sixth grader how to spell the word cat.

I watched the regal man and his faithful entourage approach then pass our table, and even though they didn’t notice me, I somehow felt that I’d just witnessed something important.   Later I would learn that such sightings had become common since Mr. King had moved to Louisville a year earlier to be the pastor at Zion Baptist Church.  Although lesser known than his famous brother, A.D was also committed to fighting for the civil rights of the poor, those many who had been denied access to the comfort and power that the so-called one percent hoarded so selfishly.  An exclusive club, the “one per centers” consisted primarily of rich white men whose sons were unlikely to be drafted into the military and sent to fight in the tangled jungles of a little-known country on the other side of the world named Vietnam.

The Civil Rights movement had spread across the country like summer moving from South to North and sunrise traveling from East to West.  In response, Hollywood had begun producing movies that showed blacks in a more positive light than ever before, and the main person chosen to carry that torch was Sidney Poitier, the son of a poor Bahamian tomato farmer and his beautiful wife.  Born when his parents were visiting Miami, Sidney held dual citizenship, and although he grew up in the Bahamas, at as teenager he came to the states to study acting.   His first notable role was as Dr. Luther Brooks in No Way Out.  After that he acted in over forty films, often as the leading man, frequently portraying characters that defied the ugly stereotypes which many Americans held about black people.  Instead, he tended to play an intelligent, noble everyman who was imbued with the most superlative characteristics a human being could possess. 

The actor is probably best remembered as Dr. John Prentice, the fiancé of Joanna Drayton, a young white woman whose wealthy parents (Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) have spent a lifetime denying their latent racist attitudes in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.  He is also known for playing the inimitable Virgil Tibbs, a black homicide detective from Philadelphia who helps racist Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger) of Sparta, Mississippi solve the murder of a white man in In the Heat of the Night, and Attorney Thurgood Marshall who succeeds in achieving the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision in Separate But Equal.  He made many other great films, as well, including the three that I love: Lilies of the Field (for which he was the first black man to win an Oscar for Best Actor), To Sir With Love, and my very favorite, A Patch of Blue.   Originally, I was going to address them separately, but after re-watching all three in a week (a real treat), I realized that although the plots varied, Mr. Poitier’s character was always that of an intelligent, resilient, and virtuous man, so I decided to discuss them together.

Lilies of the Field, which takes place in the Southwestern Desert, opens with Sidney as Homer Smith pulling up to a rundown adobe shack to get water for his car’s radiator which has overheated.  The residents are five women from Germany, only one of whom speaks enough English to understand his dilemma.  He looks strong and seems well-mannered, so after supplying the water, she asks if he can repair the cabin’s roof.  Because he’s short of cash, Homer agrees to do it for a hundred dollars.  Later when he tries to collect the money, however, instead of paying him cash, the woman, who is now wearing a nun’s habit, invites him to come inside to eat; being famished, he agrees.  When he steps into the kitchen the others, who have also changed clothes, are sitting at the table waiting for him to join them.  It turns out that the woman in charge is Mother Superior Maria (Lilia Skala), and that the others are: Sisters Gertrude (Lisa Mann), Agnes (Iso Crino), Albertine (Francesca Jarvis), and Elizabeth (Pamela Branch).  Homer quickly gobbles down the same piece of bread, boiled potato, and cup of milk that the nuns are having, then although he is far from full, he good-naturedly helps them learn English.  Later, when he again attempts to collect his wages so he can get on the road, Mother Maria puts him off by telling him to get some sleep and they’ll settle up in the morning. 

The next day, instead of handing over the money, Mother Maria asks Homer for more help, and being too good-hearted to refuse, he complies.  For each chore he completes, however, the compensation always comes in the form of a meal that can barely keep one of the women alive.  Finally, being a devout Baptist, he takes out a copy of the New Testament from his shirt pocket, and directs the nun to read Luke 10-7, “And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire.”  In turn, she refers him to Matthew 6-28 to 29 “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”  Although now sure that he’s never going to be paid, Homer continues to hang around, even driving the Sisters to mass on Sunday. He is shocked to find that the service is held outdoors and the priest, Father Murphy (Dan Frazer), has to use the rear gate of his station wagon for an altar.  After services, they return to the cabin and Mother Maria finally reveals that what she really wants from Homer is for him to build a chapel so that the people have a place to worship.   When he points out that she can’t even pay him, much less afford building materials, her response is that God will provide.   

On top of having no cash, Homer also has a problem in the form of Mr. Ashton (Ralph Nelson, uncredited) who owns the local construction company.  Wanting to earn money to buy the nuns some supplies, he asks for a job running earth moving equipment.   Mr. Ashton says okay but warns that Homer will be fired on the spot if the work isn’t done satisfactorily.  It turns out that Homer does an outstanding job, so when he suddenly fails to show up for work, Mr. Ashton asks the Mother Superior where he is.  Not wanting to admit that she’s driven him away with her harsh manner, she simply replies that he left.  Angry and disappointed, the man immediately reverts to his long held racist attitudes by characterizing the good worker as “shiftless”. 

Homer is gone for a couple of weeks but not wanting to leave the women in the lurch, he returns to work on the chapel.  He isn’t much good at it, so the townspeople begin doing the construction and let him act as their overseer, at which he excels.  When Mr. Ashton comes by and witnesses the man’s strong supervisory skills, he offers him a position as foreman, but Homer has no intention of working for a racist and refuses it.  By the end of the movie the chapel has been completed and Homer and Mother Maria have come to understand one another.  Since he has completed what God sent him to do, the nun expresses a long overdue thank-you, and he finally feels free to move on.

In To Sir With Love, which is an adaptation of the autobiography by E. R. Braithwaite, Sidney plays Mark Thackery, the new teacher at North Quay Secondary School in London.  Like Braithwaite, Thackery is a British citizen who was born in Guyana.  Educated as an engineer, he’s come to England to find work but has had to take a job teaching because no one will hire him in his field.  Much as was true for Homer, Mark is the only person of color on the faculty and quickly learns what it’s like to be a black man working in a “white” world.  His lack of experience alone would make the job difficult, but the school being located in the eastern part of London, one of the roughest sectors in the city, makes it nearly impossible.  Almost all the students are poor and come from homes either run by a single parent or by married couples that range anywhere from neglectful to outright abusive.  The school building is old and ugly, a reflection of the abject poverty that surrounds it, so the kids sit at desks which are scarred and rickety, in rooms where the walls are stained and dingy, and use a bathroom that is outdoors. 

Even though it’s named “secondary”, the school consists of both elementary and high school grades which are taught by a total of nine faculty members.  This means that instead of changing classes as is common in American high schools, students stay in the same classroom with the same instructor all day.  To make matters even harder for Mark, there is a policy that students are not to be punished, which means that they can misbehave without fear of reprisals.   This rule incapacitates him until he realizes that, rather than needing to be proficient in the usual subjects, his students have to know how to get by in the real world. 

He thinks it is essential that they demonstrate respect for themselves and others, so he decides to make the boys call the girls Miss and demands that all of them call him Sir.  He also insists that they dress presentably, arrive to class on time, and use proper language in public.  It takes a while, but eventually even the most problematic students, Pamela (Judy Dare), who rebels by wearing heavy makeup and flaunting her sexuality, and Denham (Christian Roberts) who cusses indiscriminately and disrupts class constantly, fall in line.  Mark, who can relate to the students’ desire to make the world different from what they’ve known, tells them that although they need to present themselves in ways that will help them attain jobs, it is not only okay for them to find new ways to live, but is their responsibility as the upcoming generation “to change the world.”

As is the case in Lilies of the Field, Mark has a detractor.  His name is Theo Weston, a nasty character who refers to the students as “the great London unwashed” and makes snide comments about Mark’s race by calling him a “black sheep”.  The rest of the faculty treats their newest member the same as they do each other, however, and another novice instructor named Gillian becomes a close friend and love interest.  By the end of the movie Mark has proven himself so well that even Mr. Weston expresses admiration for his talent as a teacher.  Shortly before graduation, Mark receives a letter offering him a position as an engineer and he turns in his resignation.  When they first find out that he’s leaving, the students are angry, but after accepting that he should be shown the same considerations that he’s shown them, they have a change of heart.  They literally celebrate his victory at the end-of-the-year dance with Barbara (rock star Lulu) praising him in her own rendition of “To Sir With Love”, a song which has been playing throughout the movie.  In a final twist, unlike Homer who leaves when his job is completed, Mark decides to stay, possibly because there will always be more work to do.

A Patch of Blue casts Sidney as Gordon Ralfe, a thirty-something black man that becomes both tutor and savior to a blind eighteen-year-old white girl named Selina (Elizabeth Hartman).  The only child of an abusive mother who insists on being called Rose Ann (Shelly Winters) rather than Mom, and granddaughter of an alcoholic grandfather that goes by Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), the girl lives in a run-down tenement not far from  where Gordon works.  The roles of black and white are starkly reversed in this film in that Gordon is a successful businessman from a good family while Selina is an uneducated ragamuffin whose relatives are “white trash”.

The story opens on a pair of female hands stringing beads, similar to the beginning of To Kill A Mockingbird, where Scout (Mary Badham) displays a cigar box full of trinkets that Boo Radley (Robert Duvall) has gifted to her and her brother Jem (Phillip Alford).  We soon learn that the hands are Selina’s and that she makes necklaces for a man named Mr. Faber (John Qualen) to help support her impoverished family.   The day is special because she has finally gotten up the nerve to ask permission to be taken outside.  Rose-Ann, who treats her child like an indentured servant, says no because people will stare at her ruined face, then walks out.  Needing reassurance, Selina asks her grandfather if her appearance is really so bad, to which he responds that her face is fine except for the scars around her eyes hinting that, rather than being born blind, she lost her sight as the result of an accident.  Even though both of them know that Rose-Ann flies into rages whenever she’s disobeyed, Selina continues begging Ole Pa until he relents.  As they leave the apartment, he warns her that it will be extremely late before he can bring her home, causing her to point out that being in the dark is no deterrent for someone who can’t see light. 

When Ole Pa and Selina arrive at the park, she removes her shoes to walk on the grass.  She asks her grandfather to describe what green looks like because the only color she can remember is blue, again suggesting that she has not always been unable to see.  (A similar scene appears in the movie Mask, when Diana (Laura Dern) asks Rocky (Eric Stoltz) what red looks like, and he describes it by handing her a hot potato.)  The old man ignores his granddaughter’s question, sits her under a tree, puts her box of beads where she can find them, and leaves.  Although she has sworn that she’ll prove herself by doing two-days-worth of work, the girl immediately begins wasting time daydreaming about what it would be like if she were sighted and could roam through the meadow. 

Selina’s reverie is interrupted by the voice of a man who introduces himself as Gordon and asks why she has the beads.  As they talk, he accidentally bumps the box, causing the contents to spill onto the ground; apologizing profusely, he helps pick them up.  This thoughtfulness suggests that he is good and kind, so Selina asks him about her scars, which she reveals resulted from an accident that occurred when her father came home from the war, caught her mother in bed with another man, and threw a caustic cosmetic that accidentally missed his wife and splashed into his daughter’s face.  Feeling genuinely sorry for the girl, Gordon tells her that she looks fine then goes to a small neighborhood market and buys some drinks and a pair of sunglasses which he brings back and gives to her. They talk for a while longer, and as Selina reveals that she’s never been to school, never heard of braille, and never been allowed out of the apartment, he becomes overwhelmed with genuine pity.  Finally, Gordon says that he has to be to work by five o’clock, and after promising to come by the next day, he leaves.  As the sky darkens and an evening chill sets in, Selina pulls her sweater tighter around her shoulders, calls to make sure there’s no one around, then goes behind the tree to use the bathroom.  By the time a very inebriated Ole Pa shows up to take her home, the landscape is devoid of people and the sky has turned pitch black.              

The next morning Rose Ann sees the sunglasses and claims them.  Selina makes the mistake of trying to get them back by saying that she found them in the park and should return them; enraged that the girl disobeyed, Rose Ann slaps her.  Not to be dissuaded, however, as soon as her mother is gone, Selina asks Ole Pa whether he’ll bring her home if she can get Mr. Faber to take her out.  Against his better judgement, the old man agrees.  Mr. Faber is a compassionate person who genuinely cares for Selina and is happy to grant her request.  Shortly after she gets settled, Gordon comes by and as they converse, she confesses that she was once raped by one of her mother’s many boyfriends.  Determined to make the girl more independent, Gordon helps Selina complete her work, then begins teaching her ways to get around on her own:  he shows her how to find the ladies restroom, how to count steps to keep track of her location, how to change the traffic light to cross the street, and how to use the payphone to call for help.  After he leaves for work, the sky becomes congested with clouds and a storm, with thunder loud enough to shake the earth and lightning that sears the heavens, rolls in.  As torrents of rain pour from the sky drenching her, Selina cries out for help, but there is no one is around to hear.  Suddenly, Gordon appears and carries her to a shelter where they wait until the rain stops.  Just as he starts guiding her back to the tree, however, Ole Pa staggers out of the darkness slurring Selina’s name, demonstrating even more clearly the wretchedness of the girl’s existence. 

The next morning Rose Ann scolds both of them about Selina being away from the apartment and forbids Ole Pa to take her out again.  Because helping his granddaughter has become a grueling chore, the old man doesn’t argue.  Not to be deterred, however, Selina again gets Mr. Faber to help, and this time when Gordon comes by, he takes her to his apartment.  His brother Mark, who is an intern at the nearby hospital, stops in and immediately expresses concerns that Gordon’s affiliation with the girl will end badly.  Gordon ignores the warning, however, and begins bringing Selina to his place frequently.  One day when he is escorting her home, Rose Ann sees them, waits until he leaves, then charges inside and accosts her daughter for being with a black man.  Although the girl had no idea that Gordon wasn’t white, the man’s race isn’t important to her because what she loves are his patient and caring nature.    

Rose Ann does not react as violently as she otherwise might because she and her friend Sadie are planning to move in together and open a brothel.   When Selina finds out what the women are up to, she slips away and uses the things Gordon has taught her to get to the park where he is waiting.  She tells him about her mother’s scheme and says she’s worried she’ll be forced into prostitution.  Knowing that he can’t wait any longer, Gordon starts to lead her to his apartment so he can contact a school for the blind that he’s been talking to on her behalf.  Just then, Rose Ann, who has been searching for Selina, runs up and tries to pull her away from him.  As he fights the woman off, a crowd of white people gathers.  When he succeeds in freeing the girl from her mother’s grasp and begins escorting her back to his place, Rose Ann appeals to the onlookers for help.  This is a tense moment because it is unclear whether the people will take the side of the black man who is in the right, or the white mother who is in the wrong.  Fortunately, they ignore her pleas and Gordon succeeds in getting Selina safely back to his apartment.  Although she wants to stay there, he calls the school and asks for someone to come get her.  While they’re waiting, he explains that he is a lot older than she is, and that she needs to stay at the school for at least a year before deciding what to do with her life.  Because she trusts him, she agrees to do as he asks, and when the driver knocks on the door, she acquiescently goes with him. 

Although I intend to do a more in-depth discussion later, I want to say a few words before closing this particular post.  Sociologists sometimes use a tactic known as “taking the role of the other”, which is useful for understanding how others interpret the world around them.   The method literally involves trying to step into other people’s minds, to see things the way they see them, or interpret events from their perspectives.  This is never easy (or necessarily accurate), but I believe it’s particularly difficult when the other group’s lives differ significantly from yours.  Furthermore, context must be considered because both social and personal histories matter.  The first thing that came to mind as I watched these films was that they would never have been made in the 1950s when blacks generally played minor characters like maids or maintenance workers (even the first Oscar won by a black person went to Hattie McDaniel for portraying Scarlett O’Hara’s nanny in Gone With The Wind).  Nor would they have [PS1] seemed innovative in the 1970s when so-called blaxploitation films starred all black casts.   Thus, when I look at the pros and cons of these movies, I try to keep in mind that they were figurative sledge hammers designed to crush the walls that so often assigned blacks to stereotypical roles or sought to keep them out of the industry altogether.

The strongest positives in these three films was that Mr. Poitier starred as characters who either were professionals, like Mark in To Sir With Love and Gordon in A Patch of Blue or displayed phenomenal untapped potential like Homer in Lilies of the Field.  The men he plays also speak clearly and concisely and dress in a neat and conservative manner; even Homer manages to spend hours under the hot dessert sun fixing a roof without wrinkling his pants.  Also, the men he portrays are invariably honest, reliable, and compassionate, people whom almost anyone would find admirable.  The result was that Sidney served as an excellent role model for African Americans while at the same time defying the stereotypes which Hollywood had spent decades furthering.  However, at the end of the day, I had to ask myself if there was anything negative about these films?

I couldn’t help but notice that the leading characters in these movies, Homer, Mark, and Gordon, were primarily loners.  This oddity led me to wonder if the white audience was being told that they were special, exceptions rather than the rule.  I also worried that the films suggested that African Americans should be more like white people in order to get ahead, implying that there was something wrong with twelve to thirteen percent of the American population.  Still, I don’t want to overlook the fact that Mr. Poitier and the writers, producers, directors, and casts he worked with opened doors to opportunities that weren’t available before.  Were it not for them, we would never have gotten to ride along with Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy in Driving  Miss Daisy, or watched Lou Gossett, Jr give birth in Enemy Mine, never witnessed the battle between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson as good vs. evil in Unbreakable, or gotten to enjoy the decades long career of Denzel Washington who will be the subject of my next post.    

Right now, the 1963 version of Lilies of the Field (there appears to be a remake), 1997 version of To Sir With Love (a sequel was made in 1996), and the 1965 version of A Patch of Blue can be rented on streaming services like VUDU, Apple TV, redbox, and Fandango for $4.   They are also on Amazon, where you can watch Lilies of the Field for free.  As to DVDs, all three movies are readily available for purchase although A Patch of Blue appears to cost five to ten dollars more than the other two which have price tags of around $10.  Until next time, be cool and always remember that you don’t have to wear a mask if you watch movies at home.  Later. 

 

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