If Winter Comes (1947) DVD5 - Early Janet Leight Film [DDR]

If Winter Comes (1947 DVD5 - Early Janet Leigh Film [DDR]

If Winter Comes is a 1947 drama film released by MGM.
The movie was directed by Victor Saville, based on the novel by A.S.M. Hutchinson.
The film tells the story of an English textbook writer who takes in a pregnant girl.
The novel had previously been made into the 1923 film If Winter Comes.

CAST:-
Walter Pidgeon as Mark Sabre
Deborah Kerr as Nona Tybar
Angela Lansbury as Mabel Sabre
Binnie Barnes as Natalie Bagshaw
Janet Leigh as Effie Bright
Dame May Whitty as Mrs. Perch
René Ray as Sarah 'Low Jinks'
Virginia Keiley as Rebecca 'High Jinks'

Directed by Victor Saville
Produced by Pandro S. Berman
Written by Arthur Wimperis, Marguerite Roberts, A.S.M. Hutchinson (novel)
Music by Herbert Stothart

MOVIE REVIEW:- If Winter Comes (1947)
If Winter Comes (1947), the story of an innocent man accused of being the illegitimate father of a young woman's child, was based on the book by A.S.M. Hutchinson and had been made into a silent film in 1923 by Fox Studios. The 1947 version updated the story from the First to the Second World War. It was originally to be a re-teaming of Robert Donat and Greer Garson, who had been so successful in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), and was to be filmed at Alexander Korda's Denham, England studios. When Donat became unavailable, MGM's reliable Walter Pidgeon took over his role, Greer Garson's part went to Deborah Kerr, and production was moved to MGM's studios in Culver City, California.

Hollywood gossip columnists always love a good feud, and if they can't find one, they make one up, as was the case with Greer Garson and Deborah Kerr. Articles began to appear in the papers that Garson, thirteen years older than Kerr, was angered that she had been replaced by the younger woman. Kerr dismissed the rumors, saying, "The idea of a feud between us was pure poppycock - or rather, gossip writers' fabrication - the stuff their dreams were made on. Greer was going great guns all through the time of my contract with Metro, and our friendship has lasted from that time to the present day."

Angela Lansbury, as Walter Pidgeon's shrewish wife, had been making a name for herself in Hollywood. She had already proved herself capable of playing a variety of characters, beginning when she was only eighteen, when she appeared as the scheming maid in Gaslight (1944). Her portrayal of the sweet, innocent, and ultimately tragic Sybil Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) ironically got her the role in If Winter Comes. Margaret Wander Bonnano wrote in her biography of Lansbury, "Strangely, she was cast because director Victor Saville had been impressed with her performance as Sybil in Dorian Gray. It is hard to find two screen characters who are further apart either in age or in temperament than Sybil Vane and Mabel Sabre. Twenty-two-year-old Angela was aged nearly fifteen years to look middle-aged, but it was sheer professional acting technique that created the illusion of being thirty-five. In his review, Thomas M. Pryor of the New York Times remarked, 'Angela Lansbury is quite believable and proper as the distrusting wife.'"

Newcomer Janet Leigh, who had been discovered by MGM's former top actress, Norma Shearer, remembered her time shooting the film in her autobiography, "In the spring of 1947, I was cast in my second picture, If Winter Comes, starring Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, and Angela Lansbury. The role was Effie, a poor English waif who gets pregnant by a local village boy before he leaves for the war...Very dramatic, and very English. The studio hired the niece of Sir C. Aubrey Smith to tutor me. I have a good ear, but accents just don't come easily...We read several New Yorker magazines from cover to cover, practicing intonations and inflections, so that the accent would become a familiar and natural part of my speech.

We did not read the lines from the script, thus preventing any built-in interpretation. We must have pulled it off, since Victor Saville, the director, wasn't aware of my actual heritage until late in the shooting. The majority of my scenes were with Walter Pidgeon and what a distinguished actor and person he proved to be! He also sponsored me for membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and I was accepted about six months later. That was a proud moment."

While Janet Leigh's character was pregnant in the film, it was Deborah Kerr who was pregnant in real life. By the time filming ended in late summer, 1947, she was five months along. Her daughter Melanie was born December 27th.

SYNOPSIS:- If Winter Comes (1947)
Set in the English village Penny Green in 1939, the film focuses on Mark Sabre, an author and publisher who is unhappily married to Mabel, a humorless and cold woman who usually spends her days gossiping with the townspeople. When Mark finds out his former sweetheart Nona Tybar is returning to Penny Green, Mark, unlike his wife, is delighted. Nona is married to a man named Tony Tyber, but is still in love with Mark. Mabel is aware of Mark's feelings for Nona, and encourages him to spend time with her, thinking he will eventually decide with whom he wants to spend his life.

As the war starts, Tony is called into the military, while Mark attempts to join up but a doctor finds a heart condition and prevents him. Nona leaves Penny Green in order to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Life becomes quiet for Mark, until Effie Bright, who is disowned by her father for having become pregnant, turns to him for help.

Mark helps Effie, and lets her live in his home while he looks for a better situation for her. This causes a great scandal. His boss had been looking for a way to fire Mark, and, as a result of the morals clause at his place of employment, he loses his job. Mabel leaves Mark, under the impression that Mark has fathered Effie's baby. The townspeople soon denounce Mark and when Effie, who was already mentally under stress because the real father, Harold Twyning, off at war, hadn't written her, is served with the notice that she is correspondent in the divorce, she commits suicide by poisoning herself. At the inquest to determine Effie's cause of death, numerous witnesses give anecdotal incomplete evidence suggesting a sexual relationship between Mark and Effie. Nona appears, having just learned of Tony's death, and makes a short speech in support of Mark's character. The inquest determines that Effie's cause of death was suicide, though they censure Mark for his behavior.

Returning home, a distraught Mark finds a note addressed to him from Effie. In it, Effie names her lover. It happens to be the son of one of Mark's coworkers at the publishing company. Mark furiously heads to the company to confront the young man's father, but when he gets there, the man is grief-stricken, just having received the news that his son has been killed in the war. Mark decides not to share the letter with him, but, just as he is about the burn the letter, he has a heart attack, and passes out.

Weeks pass as Mark convalesces. Nona returns to Mark, and they burn Effie's letter together.



TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-
Video Codec: MPEG-2
Video Bitrate: 4999 kbps
Video Resolution: 720x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1
Frames Per Second: 29.970
Audio Codec: AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages:English
RunTime 97 mins
Subtitles: None
Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]
Duration: 97 mins