La pluie de printemps

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.

This is a bittersweet tale of two people from different worlds who fall in love and are unhappily married to others. Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn make this story poignant, well-acted and believable.

It's love at first sight for Quinn as he comes out the box, swinging and pitching in his attraction for her. Honestly, it's just a little unsettling him always popping up, being a corn-pone chatterbox, subtly moving in with the compliments and lingering looks. He comes out the gate heated; but who can blame him. It's Ingrid Bergman he's fancying. And she slowly simmers as her attraction grows for the Tennessee mountain man Quinn plays. She's the wife of a University professor ( Fritz Weaver. ) Nice guy, good provider, but you know the type: he's no ogre, but he's staid, pedantic, and definitely not romantic. As she is throughout her career in films, Bergman is the one to watch. Her characters are so full of life if only allowed to break free.

You know how unfair, biased, skewed and stark movies present choices when they pit Marriage vs the Love Affair. We've seen it time and time again ( "The Arnelo Affair", "There's Always Tomorrow", etc. ) Well this movie is no different. Quinn's wife (played by Virginia Gregg ) is as drab and as sexless as Bergman is glamorous and sensual. It's difficult to conjure up why there was even an attraction between them ( Quinn & Gregg ) in the first place. Fritz Weaver's character fares no better. Apparently he doesn't realize what we all know very well from watching movies; when a spouse says: "let's go away, just the two of us" your marriage is on the rocks. Yet Weaver is clueless. Him throwing up their age as a deterrent to living more spontaneously is also a fly in the liniment.

The movie throws in an unnecessary monkey wrench with the issues of the son and daughter of Quinn's and Bergman's in order to create conflict. I do like how Bergman stands up to her daughter in order to try and get some piece of happiness and joy out of life instead of maternal duty. No, we didn't need the kids in this to get conflict. The story should have stayed focused on how Bergman and Quinn handle their situation.

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.

First review above slams the people of the hills of Tennessee, assuming that they are backward, in-bred people. It's too late now, but I would have objected strenuously to that misguided garbage. The reviewer probably never met a real hillbilly, and no, "Deliverance" is not about real people, it's a fictional account invented in Hollywood. Please, you idiots, stop slamming mountain people. You don't even know any.

The problem I see with the movie is casting Anthony Quinn as a mountain man. I never saw any backgrounder that said he was an immigrant from Italy, Greece, or Mexico who moved to the mountains. With the character name they gave him, I assume they were seriously trying to palm Anthony off as a Tennessean. I did notice that they never actually showed his lips moving when he was delivering his lines: Anthony's accent wasn't identifiable as such, but it certainly wasn't TN mountains. I may well be missing something. But, one thing I'm not missing is the outright prejudice, and even hate, I see for the people of the mountains. Shame!

Libby Meredith (Ingrid Bergman) is the dutiful wife of college professor Roger Meredith. They are traditional and do not approve of their daughter's personal pursuit away from her family obligations. Roger is on sabbatical writing a book. The couple leaves New York City for the country where Libby finds flirtatious neighbor Will Cade (Anthony Quinn).

There is a promise of an epic romance. It has the great pairing of Bergman and Quinn. It should be incredible. Libby as a conservative matriarch is set up to join the sexual revolution. I like the conflict between mother and daughter. I don't buy Anthony Quinn as an American, let alone a southerner. This should be a battle for Libby's heart and mind by the two men. There is a sudden twist that short-circuits the confrontation. In short, I don't like the twist which comes out of nowhere. Otherwise, the two leads and the premise provide interesting viewing.