Quand vient l'hiver

If Winter Comes is an unusual story that pits pits Mark Sabre, a kind and respectable man played by Walter Pigeon, against a town that seems bent on vilifying anyone who strays from the straight and narrow, even when there is no real evidence for his presumed misdeeds. Walter Pigeon is in his usual role as a model citizen, which he plays so often in movies like Mrs. Miniver, Advise and Consent, and Executive Suite. Janet Leigh, Deborah Kerr, and Angela Lansbury, play his friend, lover, and wife, in that order. Janet Leigh was particularly good as the innocent girl, with whom he is presumed to have a romantic interest. Deborah Kerr is his real love interest and whose love and loyalty is unwavering. Deborah Kerr is usually typecast in roles as the English lady who is never quite at ease with the opposite sex. In this movie, she has no doubt about who is the love of her life and pursues Mark, despite the steadfast love of her own husband. Finally, Angela Lansbury is very cold, efficient and downright mean as Mark's wife. Reginald Owen is the boss who uses a morality clause in Mark's contract to get revenge on a man whose generosity and common touch are too unconventional for his liking. I was pleased with the cast of the movie with Deborah Kerr shining in the final court room scene.

This movie, wonderfully performed, touches some deep aspect of human life under stress. The combination of war and love affairs is not new. Neither it is the attraction between a mature man and a young girl. However, the spectators must be mislead if they follow that path. Why the movie is about trusting, at different levels: husband and wife, lovers, mature and young, at home, at work, at the pub. There is also a political involvement: the voice of the people, which has two sides. Love can be lost, honor will not. This motto is crucial.The war is an ominous backstage, never shown. Walter Pidgeon makes an extraordinary performance, the rest of the cast does not lag behind. The final scene is simply convincing: as it has to be. Appreciating it requires some insight, undoubtedly.

This film is based upon a novel by a long-forgotten novelist, Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson (1879-1971), who was born in colonial India, and who earlier wrote a novel called THE HAPPY WARRIOR which was made into a silent feature film as long ago as 1917, in which Leslie Howard made his first feature film appearance. This film, IF WINTER COMES, was also initially made into a silent film in 1923 with a cast of actors all of whom are now entirely forgotten in the mists of time. The very powerful and disturbing story was thus a postwar tale, but one told of the aftermath of the First World War, but which is here recycled and set in the aftermath of the Second World War. Walter Pidgeon plays the lead, a gentle and kindly man living in the fictional Surrey town of Tidborough and married to an embittered harridan of a wife, played by Angela Lansbury, who certainly knew how to play embittered women and have a pinched face and the tongue of a serpent. The film is chiefly notable for the second screen appearance of Janet Leigh, aged twenty but successfully playing an innocent 16 year-old girl named Effie Bright, who is all sweetness and light. And who ever had a sweeter smile than Janet Leigh at this age? Despite being American, she manages a British accent successfully enough. The romantic female lead is played by an impassioned Deborah Kerr, at her most intense. She has returned to the town and has her heart set on joining up again with Walter Pidgeon whom she had jilted three years earlier when she ran off and married the wrong man. Pidgeon is a bit wooden, so that one wonders why all this passion is swirling around him. He is excellent at being kindly and noble, and in fact during my brief acquaintance with him in my teens, he was exactly like that offscreen. 'You couldn't find a nicer man.' But that is not the same as inspiring an controllable passion in Deborah Kerr when she is on heat. Oh well, that's the movies for you. Victor Saville did an excellent job of directing, and the film works very well. Dame May Witty has a cameo role, and it is always a pleasure to see her. The story however is very powerful and upsetting. It is about a man with a good heart who through his kindness becomes a central figure in a vast misunderstanding, where he stands accused of all sorts of terrible things which he did not do. Most of the people of the town are exposed as bitter and small-minded, and they turn against him en masse. It is really very harrowing indeed. This makes for good drama, and there is plenty of desperate tragedy.

This was sort of two movies in one. It started out with Angela Lansbury as a self-centered woman who was fearful that her husband (Walter Pidgeon) would be drawn back to his old flame. Lansbury was quite good as the wife who had an interesting approach to this situation. But later, the movie turned into a story about a young woman (Janet Leigh, doing a good British accent), who turns to Pidgeon for help and inadvertently causes a host of problems for him. Deborah Kerr is also good as Pidgeon's old girlfriend, but even with the good cast, the movie overall is little more than a confused soap opera, and the ending doesn't make much sense. Not one I'd recommend, unless you're a particular fan of anybody in the cast.

Set in a small English town just before the beginning of WW2, the story follows the trials and tribulations of Mark Sabre (Walter Pidgeon), a good, decent man married to the shrewish Mabel (Angela Lansbury). He's secretly in love with the also-married Nona Tybar (Deborah Kerr), but both are hesitant to make a move forward. When the war breaks out, Mark discovers that young Effie Bright (Janet Leigh) is pregnant, and the father is a mystery that she won't divulge. Forced out onto the streets by her religious father, Mark agrees to take Effie into his home, much to the rage of Mabel, and the condemnation of his fellow townsfolk.

The overstuffed script reveals the material's literary roots, with perhaps one or two too many minor characters for the 90+ minute running time. I get the feeling this was supposed to be a an Oscar contender for Walter Pidgeon, but he's not quite up to challenge, faltering in the film's last act with some amateurish acting. 19-year-old Janet Leigh, in only her second film, seems to have had trouble with her British accent as much of her dialogue is noticeably looped. Poor Angela Lansbury was only 22, and she auditioned for the role Leigh got, but was instead cast as the disagreeable wife of 50-year-old Pidgeon. Kerr often seems like an afterthought, a victim of the script trying to do too much. The clash of old morals mixed with small-minded people and small-town gossip would make this a good addition to a triple bill including My Reputation and Cass Timberlane.