One Potato, Two Potato

Three years before "guess who's coming to dine?" , Larry Peerce broached a taboo subject in a more convincing way ,at least in my book : no big star ,no brilliant fiance with a Nobel Prize in sight, no wide screen and no color, a shoestring budget .

Both heroes,when the movie begins (it's a long flashback) , have begun a fight which is lost in advance;the husband's lawyer , a friend though , reluctantly accepts to defend him. Religion lends a helping hand,in a the shape of a wise minister ,but the others do not (look at the face of the woman who attends the ceremony ;even the husband 's father urges his son to stick to his own kind ;it takes the birth of a baby boy to win him over).

If the final scene does not make you cry,nothing will.

This film is simply shot and compellingly told. Its stars Barbara Barrie before she became a star and features an excellent cast including a performance by a child that is so touching. I saw it as a kid with my mother and was very moved by it. I count it as one of my favorite films. I haven't seen it in years and am curious to see if I would still find it as moving. As another reviewer on this site stated, the ending is gut wrenching and I concur. I would love to buy it and show it to a film class I teach but sadly it is not available. It is one of those black and white American Kammerspiel films of the 1960s (along with A Thousand Clowns, Ladybug, Ladybug, David and Lisa) that were well received at the time of their release but are now forgotten). I don't know how one goes about getting distributors to transfer these films to DVD and make them available but if anyone knows please push for this film.

Maybe it was the racially charged era of the early Civil Rights struggle, or maybe it was because I was a young mother with a child the same age as the one in the movie, but this was one of the most powerful movies I have ever scene. Today, 40 years later, I am still moved whenever I see Barbara Barrie, even if it is in a situation comedy on TV. Certainly, she captured the role of the white mother married to a black man in a racist society. All the other actors performed admirably, the actor playing the second husband was appealing. It was believable that a co-worker would have found him attractive and would have fallen in love, even given the tenor of the times. While the writing may have presented the story a bit "over the top", this movie went beyond civil rights "propaganda", and presented real people dealing with a difficult situation. It certainly was real to me....I had to be led out of the cinema in tears when it ended. A high recommendation!!!

I am 74 yrs old and remember seeing this at around 40 with some friends..left the theater sobbing and will always remember it. Too bad we can't see these movies on TV - very thought-provoking. Has anyone else seen and remembered this movie, or am I the only one alive who remembers it?

I first saw this movie in film class, and was so moved by it that I taped it off the independent Film Channel when they showed it, and watched it twice since. And, it still makes me cry every time I watch it. First, I've never seen a movie so understated about its anger. In this regard Barbara Barrie and Bernie Hamilton are both so good that I don't know the right words to describe it. Second, the girl is not Hollywood "cute", she's not a smarty pants; she is 100% genuine. Third, the Judge is so slick and evil although he comes across so nice just like every Southern judge I have met in real life. My film teacher told me if she could pick one film to give someone the truth of what this country was all about in the early '60's, One Potato Two Potato would be that film. And the love story between Hamilton and Barrie is so real and beset with pain and passion that I can really relate to them.