The only time I’ve seen the lights come up at the TCM Classic Film Festival to reveal more people crying than not was at a 2016 screening of ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO (‘64).

ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO follows the burgeoning friendship, cautious courtship and subsequent marriage of Julie (Barbara Barrie), a white woman, and Frank (Bernie Hamilton), a black man, as they navigate the prejudices surrounding them in 1960s suburban Ohio. To compound their difficulties, Julie’s ex-husband Joe (Richard Mulligan) re-enters the picture years after deserting his family. Upon discovering their daughter Ellen (Marti Mericka) is growing up in an interracial household with a new baby brother, Joe starts a custody battle that leads to a devastating finale.

ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO debuted three years before the historic Loving vs. Virginia Supreme Court case struck down anti-miscegenation laws throughout the country, the same year GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (‘67) hit theaters, which also features an interracial romance. The latter movie benefited from its Hollywood stars and studio backing, while ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO was a labor-of-love indie film with no big-name actors; in fact, director Larry Peerce moved in with his parents to save money before filming. I’ve always believed the production’s independent spirit contributed to its poignant story and performances, resulting in an unpretentious picture that’s beautiful, heartbreaking and enraging.

Speaking of heartbreaking, the film’s gut-wrenching finale stuck with me long after my first viewing. Anchored by Barrie and Mericka’s distressing performances, the scene shows Ellen being torn from her loving family because a judge ruled that it was America’s racial problem that “creates an unwholesome atmosphere for a child of a mixed marriage” (Los Angeles Times), not the upbringing itself. Which is worse: The emotional damage inflicted on a child plucked from her mother thinking it’s her fault or the perceived impropriety of an interracial household? Today, it’s obvious that only one of those options is damaging, but as ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO harrowingly shows, it wasn’t long ago that society deemed the latter as more harmful.

I found it particularly thoughtful that the film shows how Ellen is oblivious to discrimination. When the judge tries to discern whether she views her family as different, Ellen earnestly tells him that her brother is only different because he’s a boy. Her innocence makes the ending that much more painful. Love and acceptance were clearly instilled in her home life, and based upon what we see of the racist Joe, the audience knows he will teach Ellen the opposite – a shining example of how prejudice is taught and passed down through the generations.

Peerce wanted to make a movie outside the mainstream, and with 14 states still upholding antiquated miscegenation laws in 1964, he couldn’t get much further than this. The genesis for ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO came from various articles on multiracial couples and an idea penned by Orville H. Hampton. Though Ohio lifted its ban on interracial marriage in 1887, all the southern states still had laws in effect. While Peerce didn’t try to hide the kind of story they were telling from locals during filming in Painesville, Ohio, he didn’t parade it around either. In the early 1960s, miscegenation was still verboten onscreen, and when asked by Donald Bogle at TCMFF if the public’s reaction and possible censorship worried him, Peerce responded “sure,” adding, “But we were young and stupid, which kind of makes you daring, even if you don’t want to be.“

That audacious attitude paid off critically. “It speaks out resolutely on a generally shunned social theme that is a credit to the courage of its producers and the team that made it,”

The New York Times lauded. Critics praised ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO’s tactful yet frank approach to such a delicate subject matter, and the film even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Writing. However, mirroring the plot’s theme of prejudice, Peerce faced bias from Hollywood. “Wherever we went, we were told we didn’t have a chance,” he said in a New York Times interview. A Hollywood selection committee that submitted films to foreign festivals not only refused to send ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO out, they didn’t even watch the whole movie. “We think we know where they turned off the picture,” Peerce later told The Los Angeles Times, referring to the kiss Julie and Frank share.

So, Peerce traveled overseas to meet with distributors in various European cities, which led to a French committee accepting it directly into the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. “They told us we couldn’t bring this film to Europe because Europeans wouldn’t understand this problem,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “But it looks as if they were wrong.” They sure were. So wrong, in fact, that Barbara Barrie won Best Actress at Cannes and the film received an enthusiastic standing ovation.