If Winter Comes

If Winter Comes (1947)

A.S.M. Hutchinson's beloved classic of English countryside life becomes a screen masterpiece !

The small English town of Penny Green is swarming with scandal when textbook author Mark, unhappily married to the shrewish Mabel, cultivates a friendship with Effie, a young pregnant girl. As the townsfolk theorize that Mark is the baby's father, Effie - already troubled because of her impending motherhood - commits suicide, and circulating rumors lead the authorities to think Mark killed her. The innocent writer must fight to clear his name.

Date of release
1947-12-31
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (6)
Runtime
1h 37m
Genres
Drama
Director
Victor Saville

Casting

Interesting facts

If Winter Comes is a 1947 American drama film directed by Victor Saville and starring Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr and Angela Lansbury. Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it is based on the 1921 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 silent film If Winter Comes.

Production

Producer David O. Selznick bought the rights of the novel in 1939 and intended on casting either Joan Fontaine or Vivien Leigh in the female lead roles and Leslie Howard or Laurence Olivier in the male leads. Furthermore, John Cromwell was assigned as the film's director. Production was supposed to start on March 1, 1940, but Selznick eventually abandoned the project and sold the rights to Alexander Korda.

In 1943, Robert Donat was set to star, and the production, which was still under direction of Korda, was set to be filmed on location. Donat was supposed to reteam with Greer Garson, with whom he previously starred in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). When Donat suddenly became unavailable, he was replaced by Walter Pidgeon in October 1943.

Impressed by her performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Saville assigned Angela Lansbury as Mabel Sabre. The casting of Janet Leigh followed in the summer of 1947. Her accent in the film was coached by the niece of C. Aubrey Smith.

Saville, determined on making films visually realistic, introduced "indirect lighting" in the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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