JohnHowardReid Even the master dramatist himself was delighted with this screen transformation, despite the fact that the screen writer cut a lot of his blank verse dialogue and introduced an entirely new ending. I too thought that the new ending was absolutely brilliant, the stratagem the hero uses to get out of an impossible situation being not only simple, not only realistic but highly effective as pure drama. The ironic twist with which the villain is cornered caps a superlatively constructed and cleverly thought-out narrative. I waited years to see Winterset. It did not disappoint. A great script, enthralling performances and superb production values make this film an absolute must. It's hard to believe that some of these players are making their movie debuts. Yet Burgess Meredith and Paul Guilfoyle never surpassed their acting here. In fact Guilfoyle never equalled his role here. Neither did Margo. Nor Alec Craig. Nor even Ciannelli (though he did come close a couple of times). It's also hard to believe the movie was directed by Alfred Santell. Here he abandons his usual plodding and humdrum style to use Ferguson's vast and imaginatively depressing sets with flair and authority. He punches the drama home with forceful camera angles, sharp cutting, and a remarkably skillful use of props and effects. Although it brilliantly makes use of theatrical effects, this is a movie, not a photographed stage play. Peverell Marley's atmospheric photography also reinforces the inner and outward tensions, the unnerving urgency of "Winterset".

Ray Faiola WINTERSET was a big hit on Broadway and RKO's decision to retain Burgess Meredith, Margo, and Eduardo Ciannelli to repeat their original stage roles is a major reason for the success of the film version. That they were able to adapt their performances to the intimacy of the camera is remarkable. Maxwell Anderson's dialogue is naturalized considerably from its poetic original but enough of the beautiful lyricism is retained in Anthony Veiler's screenplay to make it a very special script. While Ted Hecht must have been very good on Broadway as Garth, Paul Guilfoyle's performance in the film resulted in perhaps his best and most important screen work. Two other performances deserve special mention. Stanley Ridges as Shadow is menacing without being paranoid as is his boss, played by Ciannelli. Ridges' bloody appearance in the Esdras doorway is one of the most shocking screen moments in 30's cinema. And Willard Robertson, who made a career out of playing impatient meanies is beautifully obstinate as the boorish patrolman. Russian actor Maurice Moscovitch makes his screen debut as Garth and Miriamme's father. A veteran of the Yiddish Theater, Moscovitch later played Paulette Goddard's father in THE GREAT DICTATOR but died before that picture's release. Another Russian, Mischa Auer, makes one of his rare dramatic appearances as a social radical.The physical set is beautiful, especially the stone-style recreation of the alley and stairwells beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Finally, the film boasts a rare original score by Nathaniel Shilkret. Shilkret was a longtime bandleader who made records for RCA. He was hired as part of the RKO music staff in 1936 to replace Max Steiner who was leaving to join fledgling org Selznick-International. Shilkret's bold compositions for WINTERSET enhance the theatricality of film, though most of the dupe prints extant on video reproduce the soundtrack with very limited fidelity.For modern audiences with little patience for plays-made-into-films that represent their stage origins, WINTERSET will be a disappointment. But for those who can appreciate the care with which director Alfred Santell took to recreate much of the prosaic beauty of the Broadway original, WINTERSET will be a rewarding experience - if you can see it in a respectable copy.

bkoganbing The chance to see Broadway players recreate their performances on film back in the day should never be missed. Burgess Meredith, Margo, and Eduardo Ciannelli recreate their stage roles from Winterset in this 1936 film. But the story itself is horribly dated, mostly with a lot of left wing rhetoric which gets in the way of the plot.Probably back in 1936 no one cared as the cause of Sacco&Vanzetti was still fresh in everyone's mind. Today it is still debated by historians and legal scholars and the two working class Italian-Americans are still venerated in Italian-American households of a more liberal persuasion in their politics. But the average American today knows the case vaguely if at all today.The men went to the electric chair in Massachusetts protesting their innocence as does John Carradine in this film. Before Carradine dies he imparts a sense of mission to his son who grows up to be Burgess Meredith to find the real guilty parties.A review of the case by a law school class saying that the state electrocuted the wrong man brings new attention to the case, not something that Eduardo Ciannelli likes. He was the real trigger man in the case and now he's a big shot gangster.Rather improbable events bring Meredith, Ciannelli, the judge Edward Ellis now a drunken derelict, Paul Guilfoyle another accomplice, Guilfoyle's father Maurice Moscovitch and his sister Margo all together on a rainy and stormy night.Maxwell Anderson wrote the original play and I have to contrast it with another of his plays that made it to the screen, Key Largo. It was another film where various folks are trapped in a storm and interesting things happen. Winterset never really sheds its stage origins and can't shake the rhetoric. Contrast that to Key Largo which never loses your interest for a second and while most of the action takes place in a closed down out of season hotel where the cast is holed up you never get any sense of staginess in it. The rhetoric is there, but it never gets in the way of the story as in Winterset.Even with Oscar nominations for Art Direction and Musical scoring Winterset is a relic of bygone days.

Kara Dahl Russell Despite having read the liner notes, I thought from the publicity artwork that WINTERSET would be something Gothic. It is Gothic, in its bleakness, but is squarely centered in the Depression era of the United States. It was completely of it's time, and considering that the film was adapted from the Broadway play, it must have been daring, with sub themes of socialism and police corruption. (The play was by Maxwell Anderson, who wrote KEY LARGO and THE BAD SEED.) Perhaps that contributed to the film receiving two Academy Award nominations.This is the story of Mio (Bartholomio – a young, dewy Burgess Merideth) trying to clear his father's name. In the first scenes, his namesake Father, played with riveting stillness by the painfully thin John Carradine, was accused of murder he did not commit, given no defense, and put to death. Years later, his son goes to the slums of New York to try to find out the truth.I had to remind myself that this was made in 1936, so it is still very early in the talkies. The sets are a wonderful blend of realism and expressionism (similar to the famous stage sets of Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE), giving this a Gothic noir flavor. Rain is often used as a "purifier" in stage and film, but here it is effectively used to create an oppressive humidity, a torrent of sludge. It is clear that film noir, Orson Wells, and THE THIRD MAN's Director Carol Reed all owe a debt to early films like this. The set elements are all here in tight proximity, the stone, the shadowed doorways, the waterways.In fact, one irony is that one of the lead actors does look very much like Orson Wells. He plays the brother of Mariama (played by Margot, who is probably best known as the duplicitous woman in Capra's LOST HORIZON). Margot's transition to film is not as ideal as Merideth's, her style is more of the old school careful vocal production that may be the product of overcoming an accent. But she looks luminous and innocent, and fills the screen with a simple hopefulness at odds with the dark surroundings. The villain of the piece is simply fantastic… completely believably sociopathic without any extravagant ticks or frothing at the mouth.This is pre-method-acting, but that spare realism is all here, especially in the performances of Carradine and Merideth. This entire film holds up as a moment of history – of social themes and thought of that day that still resonate. The Broadway cast seems to have been lifted intact (which should be a lesson to modern filmmakers to use stage actors instead of vice-verse). There are one or two flowery monologues, but for the most part, the transition from stage to film goes very well, and the story and script are spare and universal enough to stand the test of time well. This is a fascinating moment of film history which has –luckily – made its way to DVD.