This independent venture was a rare and poignant treatment of interracial marriage at a time when Hollywood virtually had not broached the subject. One Potato, Two Potato tells of the love and eventual marriage of a black office worker (Bernie Hamilton) and a white co-worker, a divorcee and mother played by Barbara Barrie, who won an award at Cannes for her performance. Their first challenge is to convince his parents, midwestern farmers, of the efficacy of their union; the second, far more difficult, to protect the family against the legal battle waged by her first husband to wrest his daughter from her new black father. Albert Johnson wrote, in Film Quarterly, Summer '65, "The quest for intelligent integration of Americans on a simple, humane level, outside the South, is the concern of One Potato, Two Potato...The locality is a small town-Painesville, Ohio, replete with the cycle of the seasons and the nostalgia associated with the reveries of Wolfe or Agee. The screenplay is honest in its dialogue and emotional understatement... Peerce's difficulty lies in his overwhelming dedication to making Frank and Julie an 'average' couple-so that he applies the average sentimentalities to this highly unusual couple..."