WINTERSET (RKO Radio, 1936), directed by Alfred Santell, is not a movie set in the winter but a screen adaptation to the 1935 Maxwell Anderson prize winning play. Starring Burgess Meredith with Paul Guilfoyle, Maurice Moscovitch, Myron McCormick and Fernanda Eliscu in their movie debuts, it also co-stars Mexican actress Margo, all reprising their original stage roles. With the studio attempting to produce a motion picture to surpass the stage play through its artistic and heavy handled style in John Ford's earlier success of THE INFORMER (RKO Radio, 1935) starring Victor McLaglen, WINTERSET, which was critically acclaimed, is said to have done poorly at the box office. Overlooking the fact that the film lacks notable top marque names as Paul Muni, the performances are strong enough to be believable. In the style of KING KONG (RKO, 1933), WINTERSET is heavily underscored which at times drowns out the wording of the player's spoken dialogue. The story, which is said to have been loosely based on an actual incident, has developed into one of those dark and moody movies that needs to be seen a few times to actually feel the dramatic impact its director was attempting to present.
The story begins with a prologue, set in 1920 in a small manufacturing town near New York City. Three men, Trock Estrella (Eduardo Ciannelli), the crime boss and cold-blooded killer, assisted by Garth Esdras (Paul Guilfoyle) and Shadow (Stanley Ridges), enter and steal a parked car belonging to Bartolomeo Romagna (John Carradine), an Italian immigrant radical with a wife (Helen Jerome-Eddy) and young son, Mio (Bobby Caldwell). The car is used for a payroll robbery by which Garth shoots and kills the factory's paymaster. Found abandoned on the road by the police, the car is traced to its owner Bartolomeo who is arrested. Because of flimsy evidence at the trial, Bartolomeo is found guilty and sentenced to execution by Judge Gaunt (Edward Ellis). The prologue concludes outside the prison walls as mother and son watch for Bartolomeo's signal of death. Sixteen years later, 1936. The Romangna case is reopened by Professor Liggett (Murray Kinnell) at the Eastern Law College where law students believe and report to newspapers the Romangna case was unjustified. While Estrella has served time for petty crimes and short jail sentences, he has never arrested for the actual crime pitted against Bartolomeo. Now that the case is in the news again, Trock would like nothing more than to locate Romagna's son and others involved with the robbery put out of the way permanently. The now adult Mio (Burgess Meredith), who had been living a reclusive life, returns to the scene of the crime at the outskirts of the Brooklyn Bridge with his friend, Carr (Myron McCormick), to gather enough evidence and expose those responsible for his father's execution. He later meets and falls in love with Miriamne (Margo), unaware of her being related to one of the three killers involved in the payroll robbery. Co-starring Maurice Moscovitch (Mr. Esdras); Mischa Auer (The Radical); Willard Robertson (The Policeman); Alec Craig (The Hobo); and Barbara Pepper. It is said that future TV star, Lucille Ball, appeared as an extra, but couldn't find her.
WINTERSET has the distinction of being a stage play transferred to the screen with most of its original players reprising their roles. Aside from Meredith, Eduardo Ciannelli makes a believable crime boss with one notable scene where he turns coward when confronted by a man holding his gun towards him. Fine support goes to Edward Ellis as a guilt-ridden judge, Margo and Paul Guilfoyle both giving sensitive performances. While the conclusion of the story said to differ from the play, I feel the change beneficial to its weighty screen adaptation.
While WINTERSET has not developed into a sort-after classic, it did enjoy frequent television revivals on public and cable television stations as Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in the 1980s, around the same time the movie was distributed to home video and decades later DVD. To date, it has never been presented on American Movie Classics (during its RKO Radio title showings prior to 2001) and Turner Classic Movies. Because poor prints in circulation make WINTERSET a little hard to sit through, its the sort of movie and stage reproduction should not go unnoticed. (***1/2)
The story begins with a prologue, set in 1920 in a small manufacturing town near New York City. Three men, Trock Estrella (Eduardo Ciannelli), the crime boss and cold-blooded killer, assisted by Garth Esdras (Paul Guilfoyle) and Shadow (Stanley Ridges), enter and steal a parked car belonging to Bartolomeo Romagna (John Carradine), an Italian immigrant radical with a wife (Helen Jerome-Eddy) and young son, Mio (Bobby Caldwell). The car is used for a payroll robbery by which Garth shoots and kills the factory's paymaster. Found abandoned on the road by the police, the car is traced to its owner Bartolomeo who is arrested. Because of flimsy evidence at the trial, Bartolomeo is found guilty and sentenced to execution by Judge Gaunt (Edward Ellis). The prologue concludes outside the prison walls as mother and son watch for Bartolomeo's signal of death. Sixteen years later, 1936. The Romangna case is reopened by Professor Liggett (Murray Kinnell) at the Eastern Law College where law students believe and report to newspapers the Romangna case was unjustified. While Estrella has served time for petty crimes and short jail sentences, he has never arrested for the actual crime pitted against Bartolomeo. Now that the case is in the news again, Trock would like nothing more than to locate Romagna's son and others involved with the robbery put out of the way permanently. The now adult Mio (Burgess Meredith), who had been living a reclusive life, returns to the scene of the crime at the outskirts of the Brooklyn Bridge with his friend, Carr (Myron McCormick), to gather enough evidence and expose those responsible for his father's execution. He later meets and falls in love with Miriamne (Margo), unaware of her being related to one of the three killers involved in the payroll robbery. Co-starring Maurice Moscovitch (Mr. Esdras); Mischa Auer (The Radical); Willard Robertson (The Policeman); Alec Craig (The Hobo); and Barbara Pepper. It is said that future TV star, Lucille Ball, appeared as an extra, but couldn't find her.
WINTERSET has the distinction of being a stage play transferred to the screen with most of its original players reprising their roles. Aside from Meredith, Eduardo Ciannelli makes a believable crime boss with one notable scene where he turns coward when confronted by a man holding his gun towards him. Fine support goes to Edward Ellis as a guilt-ridden judge, Margo and Paul Guilfoyle both giving sensitive performances. While the conclusion of the story said to differ from the play, I feel the change beneficial to its weighty screen adaptation.
While WINTERSET has not developed into a sort-after classic, it did enjoy frequent television revivals on public and cable television stations as Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in the 1980s, around the same time the movie was distributed to home video and decades later DVD. To date, it has never been presented on American Movie Classics (during its RKO Radio title showings prior to 2001) and Turner Classic Movies. Because poor prints in circulation make WINTERSET a little hard to sit through, its the sort of movie and stage reproduction should not go unnoticed. (***1/2)