Before Winter Comes

Before Winter Comes (1969)

Drama/Comedy set in a refugee camp in occupied Austria after World War II. A shrewd multi-lingual interpreter who mediates between Russian and British military brass enters into a friendly rivalry with British Major Giles Burnside, who is in charge of assigning the displaced persons into either the American or Russian zones.

Date of release
1969-01-17
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (14)
Runtime
1h 43m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
J. Lee Thompson

Casting

Interesting facts

Before Winter Comes is a 1969 British comedy-drama war film directed by J. Lee Thompson from a screenplay by Andrew Sinclair.

Production

The film was based on a short story The Interpreter which had appeared in The New Yorker. Screenwriter Andrew Sinclair says David Niven insisted on a title change as he did not play the interpreter.

J. Lee Thompson said he made the film to return to more intimate dramas of earlier in his career such as Woman in a Dressing Gown.

Niven's fee was $250,000. It was an early screen role for Topol, who had become famous playing Fiddler on the Roof on stage in London. J. Lee Thompson called Topol "the Frank Sinatra of Israel, rugged, handsome, a Clark Gable type or a European version of Burt Lancaster."

Filming took place south of Salzburg. John Hurt recalled "Niven was very helpful" during the shoot "because Chaim (Topol) was being difficult and tricksy."

In 2023, actor Larry Dann dedicated a chapter of his autobiography "Oh, What A Lovely Memoir" to share his memories of the making of this production.

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

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