La pluie de printemps

Admirers of classic films will no doubt enjoy seeing Anthony Quinn reunited with Ingrid Bergman, his co-star from 1964's "The Visit"; they're an interesting screen match, but here, in 1970, with handyman Quinn talking in a southern drawl and matronly Bergman playing a professor's wife living on a farm in Tennessee, one cannot help but feel a sense of central dislocation. Bergman's husband (American actor Fritz Weaver) takes a year off from teaching to write a textbook, but instead stares at his typewriter, pipe firmly stuck between his teeth (his wife isn't frigid, but he is). It's no wonder then that Bergman enjoys Quinn's advances, but since they're both married--and have problems with their selfish children besides--it's hardly a December-age romance. Dreary melodrama, adapted from the book by Rachel Maddux, with clumsy exposition and even clumsier attempts to modernize an old formula. Charles Lang's cinematography is a visually jarring mix of location shots, back projection and ugly sets, while miscast Quinn is overly-friendly and solicitous (he makes the audience as uncomfortable as Ingrid's chilly spouse). While it's good to see the two stars together again, this Smoky Mountains scenario is a drag: colorlessly staged, poorly-conceived, predictable and depressing. ** from ****

I read about some of the bad reviews here. I don't usually write a review of any film I have watched but this time around I felt like I need to jot down something nice about this movie. It wasn't as bad viewing as I initially thought.

I didn't expect it to be on par with other great love stories in calibre of Casablanca or Brief Encounter. But I think it is a decent film, amicable but has sad ending. The film has a beautiful scenery with the great Appalachians landscape during the spring season that makes my heart long to be in that place. It is good enough to fill my time as I didn't have any thing worthy to do. The film flows beautifully, slow at start but still engaging that keeps you glued to the screen.

The attraction between Libby and Will was a bit rushed and Quinn did not convince me enough as a mountain handyman. Something is missing here. The scene where Libby met with Will's son came out of nowhere. They should focus a bit more on relationship between Will and his son so we can fully understand their interaction or left hanging guessing ouselves. Did he love his son or not?

The great Ingrid Bergman as usual carries the whole movie on her shoulder. Put someone lesser in her part and the film would be unbearable to sit through. I enjoy looking at her matured beauty, she was 54 at the time but still has this luminosity and radiance coming out of her. Its hard to compete with her, when she was on screen everybody ceased to exist.

This is an excellent film which I caught accidentally on a rainy afternoon on cable. A professor and his wife head to the appalachians for his 1-year sabbatical. They rent a house from Will Cade (Anthony Quinn), an overly-friendly, hospitable country bumpkin. Will from the very beginning makes comments about how pretty the professor's wife is, and that's just the beginning. While the absent-minded professor is lost in his own world, concerned about his career and completing his book, Will Cade seems to just have too much time on his hands and spends it making the professor's wife more familiar with the wonders of Appalachia. He brings her flowers from the countryside, buys her animals to keep her company, takes her to see the beautiful scenery. None of these are overt passes, but they all could be interpreted either way, which is part of the genius of the film: on the one hand, Will Cade really is doing a lot of things for this woman and anyone would be touched by them; he is extremely sincere. But on the other, there is something about him which makes you uncomfortable, maybe his over-familiarity with people he doesn't know. In this way, it's similar to Cape Fear since it indirectly says a lot about social class--the professor is overly intellectual, but passionless and emotionally handicapped, unable to think of others besides himself; while the country bumpkin is not wordly, but very genuine and giving. There are two other subplots involved a daughter of the professor and his wife, and the Will Cade's son, with whom he has conflicts which are never fully explained. Eventually, the woman gives in and kisses Cade, and I won't give away the rest of the story. But the mood of the film is very well set. There is a great scene at an appalachian country fair where Will is in rare form and the professor is clearly uncomfortable in this "culture" which he doesn't consider a "culture". The whole story is set in this haunting, appalachian environment, which is how it is similar to "Deliverance". There is that fantasy which urban dwellers have of the simple, personal country life, and then there's the in-breeding, backwardness, and so-on they are repulsed by. I highly recommend this film.

How easy it is for the children to take their parents for granted? The key moment in the film is when the mother character(Ingrid Bergman) asks her daughter, if she has ever thought about her mother as a person. This is in response to her daughter's request that she leave her Smokey Mountains paradise(and new found love), so that she can take care of her grandchild while her daughter can be free to pursue her own law career. At the same time Anthony Quinn- Bergman's lover, is presented with a similar situation with his brutish son, who eyes the blossoming relationship with growing hostility. This is probably the main theme in this wonderfully shot and pleasantly paced drama. By todays standards the ending may be a little sad, but its far more realistic.

A Walk In The Spring Rain has Fritz Weaver and Ingrid Bergman as a college professor of political science going on sabbatical in the Great Smokey Mountains of Eastern Tennessee. Him for peace and quiet for a year so he can publish rather than perish, she for a little time away from being a mom, grandmother, and babysitter not necessarily in that order.

They take a cottage and the local handyman is Anthony Quinn doing a Smokey Mountain version of Zorba the Greek. He's married to psalm singing Virginia Gregg and she's no fun. Quinn has a son in Tom Holland who like his dad takes his action where he finds it.

The educated Bergman intrigues Quinn and he gives all kinds of hints as to his availability. But this one is doomed for all kinds of reasons.

I'm all for romantic stories with older protagonists and Quinn and Bergman fit the bill. The stars get good support from the rest of the cast. This is Bergman and Quinn's second film together and they acquit themselves well.

Still it won't be listed among the best for either.