Shelley Winters @ 100: A Patch of Blue (1965)
Sunday, August 16, 2020 at 5:35PM We're celebrating the centennial of Shelley Winters. Here's Nathaniel...
Int. Nathaniel's apartment. Two best friends are bored, realizing it's another "exciting" COVID summer night of what will we eat for dinner / watch on TV?. Nathaniel presents a few movie options (inevitably related to whatever TFE projects are in development). His friend's choice surprises him, "I think I'm really in a Shelley Winters mood." Nathaniel wonders for a split-second what a 'Winters mood' is before realizing he already knows... and approves! Up goes the movie and within seconds they glance at each other. "Shelley is going hard!" Nathaniel proclaims, half-stunned. He really shouldn't be. Going hard is, after all, a Winters mood and specialty.
Still and all, performances that begin at the pitch the Oscar winner risks for her introductory scene in A Patch of Blue rarely have anywhere go to thereafter...
Who's been guzzling my gin?
We meet Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) as she's returning home from her hotel maid job, rubbing her feet and bitching that her dinner isn't ready yet. She views blind Selina (Elizabeth Hartman, Oscar nominated for Best Actress) as her personal maid, cook, and tenant. As the scene progresses, Shelley deftly winds Rose-Ann up rather than the wind-down you'd expect after a long day at work. It's very smart, if actressy, work. Is her second job punishing her daughter for their sorry lot in life? It's unpaid work but she clocks in for that
At this point in the narrative we don't actually know that they're mother and daughter (it's cleared up a few scenes later). See, "maternal" Rose-Ann just ain't. Still, Winters shrewdly softens her voice from time to time in the middle of barking as if she's remembering to "mother," however crudely her idea of the act is. Or perhaps she's just vaguely curious about why her daughter hasn't done her chores or wondering what's distracting her.
Rose-Ann's hostility is not exclusive to her helpless daughter. Her own father "Ole Pa" (Wallace Ford) is also relentlessly builled and belittled. Unlike Selina, though, he often fights back.
The 'Monster Mom' has long been a specialized menu item from showboat actresses that Oscar voters will reliably devour. What's remarkable about Winters work throughout A Patch of Blue, is how hot the oven stays and how unerringly she commits to the fire. Winters isn't just cooking up a juicy character, she's warning you that Rose-Ann would burn down the world if it meant keeping her feet warm.
The brilliance of the performance is best discovered in a few quiet beats in Winters performance that suggest the cruel depths of Rose-Ann's misery. In these moments, you can see her actively considering and plotting against her daughter's new unfamiliar happiness. Rose-Ann doesn't know about Gordon (Sidney Poitier) a kind man that her daughter has been spending each day with in the nearby park, but she doesn't like the change in her daughter. A barely visible but frightening smile crosses Winters' lips. Misery loves company and she isn't going to let her daughter go without a fight.
Gordon: Did you ask her why?
Selina: When Rose-Ann gets going you don't bother about why. You just keep out of the way.
The plot escalates as you'd expect -- Movies have to have a conflict and climax and Rose-Ann is A Patch of Blue's villain -- but somehow as she becomes yet more monstrous, she loses power and appears more pathetic. Winters famed lack of vanity pays strong dividends. The climax unites the movie's two biggest stars (Poitier and Winters) for their only scene together. This monster mother goes full "Karen" in the park, shouting racist words at Sidney Poitier, and threatening to call the cops on him.
In 1965 Shelley Winters was a respected veteran and already an Oscar winner. Though three men had won multiple supporting statues by Oscar's 38th year (Walter Brennan, Anthony Quinn, and Peter Ustinov) and five more men would follow, Oscar has almost never felt the need to honor a character actress twice. Rose-Ann, however, proved too potent a creation for them to pass up and the Academy happily handed Ms Winters a second golden man. It's a rare enough feat that only one woman after her, Dianne Wiest, has ever managed it.
Thank you for attending TFE's Shelley Winters Centennial!
Nathaniel on The Starlet in A Double Life (1947)
Eric on The Pro in Lolita (1962)
Nathaniel on The Champ in A Patch of Blue (1965)
Claudio on The Actor's Actor Bloody Mama (1970)
Baby Clyde on The Old Crone Pete's Dragon (1977)
Glenn Dunks on The Memoirist "Shelley II" (1989)
Reader Comments (17)
A Patch of Blue is one of my favourite books and I really like the screen adaptation. It really captures the spirit and essence of the characters on screen very well. Winters embodies a very abrasive role perfectly, and knowing the source and intended role within the story, can honestly say she is exquisite. Especially in that, in my honest opinion, weak field of nominees she makes one of the more clear cut deserving winners ever. I’m gushing because I always read some level of criticism of Winters performance in APoB, when the writers really take umbrage with a perfectly performed role they don’t like.
Somebody do a piece on this performance and Alison Janney in I, Tonya. I feel like that would be an interesting read. Or as a piece about the ‘Monster Moms’ you mention.
Gosh, this is a great series. The analysis is superb, but what really makes this salute to Shelley Winters special is the selection of film. These are atypical examples of the actress’s oeuvre and yet the lively banter prompts us to see an actress we know in a new light. So well done.
I strongly dislike this performance, going so far as to rank it as one of the worst Best Supporting Actress winners ever. However, this splendid write-up made me want to revisit the movie and look at Winters' vile turn through different eyes.
For what it's worth, I've always felt curious about the actress' own feelings regarding her second Oscar-winning work. She, who's always been proud of her double victory, said she hated this character and never managed to understand the woman she was playing. While I get what she's saying, that barrier between actress and role makes itself obvious throughout the movie. I often feel like I'm watching the angry commentary of a performer about her part rather than an embodiment of the character. She often goes for cartoonish excess when it's in the quieter, gentler, moments that Winters' portrayal sings and stings the audience.
In any case, whenever you do the Smackdown of 1965, I'll revisit A PATCH OF BLUE and maybe I'll find a new appreciation for Winters' work. I'd certainly like to love her as you do.
Winters is indeed brilliant here. And Elizabeth Hartman is wonderful.
It's a funny thing about Shelley Winters: people usually snicker when you mention her name, but damned if she didn't pull off one role after another after another. Like Karen Black or Susan Tyrrell, there's a sense of ridiculousness about her--something neurotically off-kilter--but all three actresses somehow manage to draw upon themselves so deeply that they consistently deliver compelling performances, almost always outsize but always truthful--and inventive, too. (I suspect Sally Kirkland belongs in this group, too, but I haven't seen enough of her work to know.)
Random trivia: I did a play with the actor who played the delivery boy, the one comes to the apartment to bring Selina good news. He was terrific. And he told me that Elizabeth Hartman was really nice (hardly surprising, but still cool to hear about it first-hand).
I don’t really love this performance but the movie is great. Super sweet and Hartman is beyond wonderful.
LOVING all of the Shelley retrospective!,
I enjoyed reading the post but I hated A Patch of Blue so much the first time I watched it years ago that I've never revisited it. I'm with Claudio when the '65 Smackdown comes along I'll give it another look but until then I remain a non-fan.
I'm delighted that Shelley has such a tough to achieve distinction of the two Oscars but I wish the second was for The Poseidon Adventure or her unnominated work in The Chapman Report, Lolita or Wives and Lovers.
I'm a Hartman - Winters voter in '65
Can you guys please do her in The Diary of Anne Frank as well?
I have always been so curious about that performance.
Melissa Leo saw this before The Fighter, took out the evil and kept the showboating. Leo would be awesome in a remake of A Patch of Blue.
Not me, but I agree.
Int. Nathaniel's apartment. Two best friends are bored, realizing it's another "exciting" COVID summer night of what will we eat for dinner / watch on TV?.
Oh my god, they were roommates...
Claudio, I feel like you fell into the subconscious trap that folk who write about movies fall into: you've over analysed and added layers and subtext that are more subjective than the writer's ego will admit. i see you save your subpar writing for the comments! JK (I'm clearly just kidding, but folks like Danielle or Daniella don't enjoy very tongue in cheek obvious ribbing from time to time so i thought I would add JK and a caveat in case context clues aren't enough) lol
I'm not entirely sold on the film itself but Winters is a nauseating hoot in it - and easily deserved that Oscar.
It's a film that's oversaturated in the politics of its time, bluntly and simplistically so, but there's lots to admire in both Winters and Hartman. I've seen it twice now and I agree with those that it's too bad that some of Shelley's appeal is the camp quality, especially of her later years. In this or Place in the Sun or Night of the Hunter or Executive Suite, she's a great draw. A worthy Oscar two-timer.
I would appreciate if people didn't use my name to post comments that aren't mine. Thank you very much. I just deleted the comment from an imposter using my name to post an insulting message to other writers.
joel6 -- I'm also loving this retrospective, which has made me want to explore more of the actress' filmography. Whatever the quality of her performances, she always had a bombastic screen presence. Even here, a work I don't like, she's magnetic as much as she is repulsive.
Hope you also like my contribution to the Winters centennial :)
In my opinion not only is Rose Ann one of the most despicable female characters of all time, she may be the most despicable, period (David Strathairn) in Dolores Claiborne gives her a run for her money. Winters was a tremendous talent. I've fantasized about torturing Rose Ann. Something that I don't think gets enough attention is how much she is helped by Elizabeth Hartmann. Selina is such a beautiful soul who for some cosmic bullshit reason ended up in the hands of this disgusting woman that it makes us hate Rose Ann more intensely. It is heart wrenching to see the miserable life that this poor blind girl must endure. Poitier's character pulls her out of the hellish prison in which she is trapped, and us along with her. Really saddened me to hear the way Elizabeth Hartmann ended up. She was a tortured soul.