Expert: Mel - 1/14/2011

Question
I remember seeing an old B&W movie as a kid and can't quit thinking about it.  My memory is a little sketchy but what I recall is that it was about a whole community of blind people in the hills/mountains somewhere, and a sighted traveler wanders into their village. People in the village had been blind for so many generations that they thought sighted people were crazy and their fluttering eyelids were the cause, so they had a surgical rite of removing the eyelids of the babies when born.  The traveler who wandered in, of course, fell in love with someone from the village and wanted to marry him/her.  The tension in the plot is that they discover that the traveler has those fluttering eyelid things and talks crazy (about things related to sight), so they insist s/he let them surgically remove them so s/he can "be cured" of the craziness.  Have you ever heard of such a movie?  Thank you so much!!!

Answer
Hello Sandra,

What you are describing is a story by H.G. Wells called "The Country Of The Blind".
Have a look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Blind


As far as I know, it has never been made into a film, but it was produced for television in 1962 as an episode of The DuPont Show of the Week under the title "The Richest Man in Bogota". It starred Lee Marvin. Have a look here.....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0566778/combined


Glad to be of help. Cheers.......Mel.