Hartman plays Selina, a young blind woman who lives in a one room apartment with an abusive, racist mother (Shelley Winters) and an alcoholic grandfather (Wallace Ford). Selina\u2019s small, sad existence is made infinitely larger and more joyful\u00a0 when kind Black newspaperman Gordon (Poitier) becomes her friend, and helps her learn how to navigate her sightless world.\u00a0It would have been so easy for the movie to lean into the sentimentality of its premise, but A Patch of Blue<\/em> ducks the tweeness traps at every juncture \u2013 and much of that is down to Hartman.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are few recollections from former co-stars that don\u2019t refer to Hartman\u2019s shyness. There was often a delicate tremor to her speaking voice, and at rest, her eyes held a dreamy reserve that left the impression of a rich inner life. Yet as an actor, she wore her emotions even more legibly than most, with an aptitude for grounding big moments with quieter texture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her Selina is an impressive balancing act, particularly for someone so early in their career. She\u2019s sweet, but never cutesy; devoid of guile, and yet canny enough to have protected herself through an existence where all the cards have been stacked against her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether she\u2019s gushing over her first experience of pineapple juice, cursing her cruel mother when she realises just how cruel she\u2019s been, or glowing with love for Poitier\u2019s Gordon, there\u2019s not a moment when she\u2019s unconvincing. That\u2019s especially important when Selina\u2019s relationship with Gordon is of such a sui generis nature \u2013 partly romantic, partly platonic, partly filial, whilst also something totally undefinable. She and Poitier are a wonderful team, with the sort of unusual but undeniable chemistry that makes you sit closer to the screen even sixty years later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartman\u2019s performance was deservedly nominated for an Academy Award, but she\u2019d never get a movie role near that magnitude again. However, in the brief flicker of her filmography, she still managed to work with Sidney Lumet, John Frankenheimer, Francis Ford Coppola, Don Bluth and Don Siegel \u2013 not bad for someone who made nine features total. Alas, despite their directorial pedigree, her first three films after her Oscar nomination stopped her momentum dead.<\/p>\n\n\n In Lumet\u2019s unwieldy The Group<\/em>, she\u2019s a 1930s Vassar graduate who contends with the post-college realities of systemic sexism. Though her bafflement at finding herself a feminist Democrat married to a misogynistic Republican is an affecting encapsulation of the movie\u2019s wider themes, as one of eight leads, she gets lost within the large ensemble. She was wildly miscast as the vampy love interest in Coppola\u2019s sexist sex comedy You\u2019re A Big Boy Now<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> And in Frankenheimer\u2019s dreary The Fixer<\/em>, her character disappears too early to leave an impression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She took a break from the big screen after that. A downhearted Times<\/em> interview from1969 titled \u201cAfter \u2018A Patch of Blue, Gray Skies\u2019<\/a>\u201d noted that she had no acting jobs on the horizon. But she wasn\u2019t done yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years later, in The Beguiled,<\/em> she was the plain, virginal Edwina, the sole teacher at a Mississippi Confederate School for Girls. Like the rest of the school\u2019s female inhabitants, she\u2019s wooed by Clint Eastwood\u2019s injured Union soldier, John McBurney, who convinces Edwina he loves her. When she catches him in bed with a student, her heart breaks and her blood boils all at once. It\u2019s her resultant fury, so vividly played, that hurls the unhinged production into its feverish third act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although she had less to do in 1973\u2019s Walking Tall<\/em><\/a> as the lovingly concerned wife of Joe Don Baker\u2019s vigilante sheriff, her innate authenticity, and her lovely rapport with Baker, gives the ultraviolent production its vital emotional grounding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And there was a poignant circularity to her last movie role, voicing plucky mouse Mrs. Brisby in Don Bluth\u2019s 1982 animation, The Secret of NIMH. <\/em> Like Selina in A Patch of Blue,<\/em> she is charged with diving into a scary new world that she doesn\u2019t understand. Like Selina, she presents as fragile but proves formidable. While it was only a vocal performance, that same combination of fragility and fortitude with which she started her career helped to make Mrs. Brisby a beloved character, and The Secret of NIMH <\/em>a classic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hartman struggled with depression for much of her life, and tragically died by suicide in 1987, aged just 43. In various outlets, most notably a devastating LA Times<\/em> article<\/a>, her premature death was blamed at least in part on her Hollywood disappointments. After watching her luminous debut turn in A Patch of Blue<\/em>, it\u2019s hard to view the remainder of her career outside the shadow of tragedy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet when her performances were so heartfelt and full, even when she had little to work with, it\u2019d be wrong to label it entirely squandered. She deserved so much better than what she got, but she gave all she had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “A Patch of Blue” is streaming on Kanopy<\/a> and is available for digital rental or purchase<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/patch2-1024x576.jpg\")
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