Revisiting the Canon: For Love of Ivy

by Guest Contributor shani-o, originally published at Postbourgie

(The whole thing is on YouTube, who knew?)

I don’t expect you to have ever heard of For Love of Ivy. I hadn’t heard of it until a couple of years ago, one night when I was hanging out with my dad and we were trolling On Demand for something to watch.

So, as we resurrect “Revisiting The Canon” here at PB, I realize this is an out-of-place choice. This movie isn’t actually in the black canon, like previous entries Boyz In The Hood, Eve’s Bayou, and Idlewild. But it is a black movie, in the sense that it features two black leads, and was cowritten by one of the greatest stars of the 60s, Sidney Poitier. Also, it’s old, and definitely worth revisiting.

Spoilers ahead.

Allow me to lay the scene. The story revolves around the Austin family that owns a department store and lives in a beautiful home out on Long Island. Father, mother, hippie son Tim, and popular daughter Gena. And their maid, the titular Ivy Moore, played by Abbey Lincoln.

The plot is a simple twist on The Taming of the Shrew. Ivy, an uneducated woman in her late twenties, has been with the Austins for nearly 10 years. She wants to move into New York City to attend secretarial school, which would force them to hire another maid. The Austin patriarch, a pre-Archie Bunker Carroll O’Connor, couldn’t care less (“Hire another maid!”), but the mother, and two adult children are devastated, and try to convince her to stay.

The children, Tim (a very young Beau Bridges) and Gena, who seem to live at home and work in the department store, decide that what Ivy really needs is a man. Tim comes to this conclusion after figuring out what the biggest difference between Gena and Ivy is (“What’s color got to do with it?” Gena wonders): male suitors. Gena has several boyfriends, and Ivy none. The implication here, of course, is that a woman like Ivy doesn’t need any education if she gets some attention from a man. (As an aside: at one point, when the attractive Gena enters the stockroom of the store, all the men look up in admiration. Tim says to the room: “Alright guys, you’ve all seen Gena naked before.” This is never explained, and Gena’s sexuality is played in an odd, but nonjudgmental, way later in the film, as well.)

Tim blackmails Jack Parks (played by Poitier), a trucking business owner who has an account with the Austins, into taking Ivy out. Parks runs the day operation — shipping goods — while his partner runs the night operation, a casino truck for illegal gambling. But Parks doesn’t want the night operation exposed, so he very reluctantly agrees to meet Ivy. He’s educated and sophisticated, and looks down on Ivy as just another ignorant colored girl who wants to get married. Tim selected Jack precisely because he knows Parks will never propose and take Ivy away from the family.

When Jack, strongarmed, comes to dinner, there’s this nutty bit of dialogue that I just had to transcribe. It’s about 10 times more awkward than it reads:

Gena: Tell me, Mr. Parks, what do you think of the Black Power Movement?

Jack: I think about it…a lot.

Gena [awkward smile]: Ah. And do you approve of it?

Jack: I don’t…talk…about it.

Gena [awkward smile]: Ah.

[Tim enters with coffee.]

Jack: Thank you.

Gena: Ivy goes to a lot of civil rights meetings, don’t you, Ivy?

Ivy: Once in a while. It’s a place sometimes to meet people.

Tim: I was in an elevator once with Ralph Bunche. He stepped on my foot.

Jack [disdainfully]: That can be a problem when you don’t wear shoes.

Tim: No, he said “excuse me.”

Gena [proudly]: I’ve been on a lot of picket lines and things. In fact, I was even in jail once overnight, because I refused bail.

[Awkward silence.]

Gena: Ivy belongs to the NAACP, don’t you, Ivy?

At this point, Ivy excuses herself, and Gena follows her out. Saying what we’ve all been thinking, Ivy snaps at Gena, “Just because he’s colored, do you have to talk about colored things?” She adds: “Why did you make me sit in the living room like that? You know I never do that!”

But Ivy warms to Jack, and ends up going out with him, on the grounds that a date with him will be an ‘interesting’ experience for her to remember. By their second date, the magical properties of her vagina have led him to fall in love with her.

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