For Love of Ivy (1968)

For Love of Ivy (USA, 1968) 101 min color DIR: Daniel Mann. PROD: Edgar J. Scherick, Jay Weston. SCR: Robert Alan Arthur, based on a story by Sidney Poitier. MUSIC: Quincy Jones. DOP: Joseph F. Coffey. CAST: Sidney Poitier, Abbey Lincoln, Beau Bridges, Nan Martin, Lauri Peters, Carroll O’Connor. (Cinerama Releasing Corporation)

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After his trio of 1967 films (To Sir, With Love; Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner; In the Heat of the Night), Sidney Poitier made a romantic comedy that is groundbreaking in its own way, as a Hollywood love story to feature two black leads. After nine years as the maid to the Austins (who run a family business), Ivy gives her notice so that she can go to the city for secretarial school, get a job and start a family of her own. Although the Austins consider her “family”, she counters that even if she spent another nine years there, she still wouldn’t have anything of her own. Fair enough. However, the Austin children – hippie son Tim (Beau Bridges) and go-go chick daughter Gena (Lauri Peters) – surmise that maybe all Ivy needs is a little romance in her life, so they play Cupid by setting her up with the man who owns the trucking firm that supplies their warehouse. Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s fun to see Sidney Poitier in a role that’s more caddish than his usual noble characters, but one senses he had more on his mind in his original story idea, before it was fleshed out to a feature film. And yet, it’s also quietly groundbreaking to see this dating couple stepping out into places of privilege, as white people offer their chairs and shake hands.

When the Austin children launch their harebrained scheme as matchmakers, I thought of a scene in Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon (1991) in which Danny Glover and Alfre Woodard, after being set up for a blind date by a white man, joke to each other that they must be the only black people he knows. That brief moment in has more bite than the watered down commentary disguised in Mr. Poitier and Ms. Lincoln being waited on by the white kids at their supper date at home, and to later see Mom later realize how useless she is in the kitchen without Ivy, and there is too much time spent on Poitier’s “after hours” life of running a gambling operation in the trailer of an 18-wheeler! (Granted, there is a novel idea in that the black-run organization will only take money from white clientele.) Today, there is extra context seeing Carroll O’Connor as the father (although his role is underwritten), in a film with racial undertones shortly before his groundbreaking Archie Bunker role. (Ironically, he’d play the Steiger role in the TV series of In the Heat of the Night.)

Even if the third act goes off the rail in a weak attempt to tie everything together, this is still a entertaining watch for a Sunday afternoon, including a hilarious scene when the couple go on a date to view an “of its time” theatrical “happening”. Sidney Poitier is charming as always, and jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is a revelation. In her second film role, following her heartbreaking turn in Nothing But a Man, she once again demonstrates a unique screen presence worthy of a major movie career. Sadly, this was her last feature film until Spike Lee’s Mo Better Blues (1990). She and Beau Bridges received Golden Globe nominations for their roles; the film’s lovely theme song was Oscar-nominated, ironically sung by Shirley Horn instead of Ms. Lincoln.

There are several cameos for those who like to spot the stars: in early roles, Jennifer O’Neill as a store clerk, Marlene Clark as a phone girl, and Gloria Hendry as a cocktail waitress; Hugh Hurd from Shadows drives a truck, and of all people, Hope Stansbury from the Andy Milligan stock company plays one of the stage actors in the happening! (Viewed via the MGM-UA DVD, purchased at the Jesus Saves thrift store in Birdtown, former storefront of George’s Used Furniture, where my buddy Rob and I would get LPs for a dollar and paperbacks for a quarter. Those were the days!)