Winterset (film)

Winterset
Winterset
	DVD cover
Directed by	Alfred Santell
Screenplay by	Anthony Veiller
Based on	Winterset; by Maxwell Anderson
Produced by	Pandro S. Berman
Starring	Burgess Meredith; Margo; Eduardo Ciannelli; John Carradine; Edward Ellis
Cinematography	J. Peverell Marley
Edited by	William Hamilton
Music by	Nathaniel Shilkret (uncredited)
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	November 20, 1936;
Running time	77 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$407,000
Box office	$682,000

Winterset is a 1936 American crime film directed by Alfred Santell, based on the 1935 play of the same name by Maxwell Anderson, in a loose dramatization of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and execution in 1928. The script retains elements of the blank verse poetic meter on which Anderson based his 1935 Winterset Broadway theater production.^[3]

Actor Burgess Meredith made his credited film debut as the avenging son Mio Romagna.^[4]

The film greatly changes the ending of the play, in which the lovers Mio and Miriamne are shot to death by gangsters. In the film, the two are cornered, but Mio deliberately causes a commotion by loudly playing a nearby abandoned hurdy-gurdy and deliberately causing himself and Miriamne to be arrested, thus placing them out of reach from the gangsters. The film made a loss of $2,000.^[2]

Cast

Burgess Meredith as Mio Romagna
Margo as Miriamne Esdras
Eduardo Ciannelli as Trock Estrella
Maurice Moscovitch as Esdras
Paul Guilfoyle as Garth Esdras
Edward Ellis as Judge Gaunt
Stanley Ridges as Shadow
Mischa Auer as A radical
Willard Robertson as Policeman
Alec Craig as Oak
John Carradine as Bartolomeo Romagna
Myron McCormick as Carr
Helen Jerome Eddy as Maria Romagna
Barbara Pepper as a girl
Fernanda Eliscu as Piny
Lucille Ball as a girl (uncredited)

Reception

Writing for The Spectator in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a good review, noting that "this play (in the original it was in blank verse) has [...] solid merits". Despite its genre, Greene commented that "there are situations [...] which have more intensity than mere 'thriller' stuff". He praised the "evil magnificence" of Ciannelli's acting as Trock, pointing out that "here, as in all good plays, it is in the acts themselves, as much as in the dialogue, that the poetic idea is expressed."^[5]

Awards

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Art Direction by Perry Ferguson and the other for Original Score by Nathaniel Shilkret.^[6]^[7]

Footnotes

^ "Winterset: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
^ ^a ^b ^c Richard Jewel, 'RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994 p56
^ Ross, 2004: “...blank verse gangster story (loosely based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case)...liberated from much of the poetic dialogue by screenwriter Anthony Veillier...”
^ Ross, 2004: "Meridith would never become the [box office success the critics] predicted in reviews of Winterset."
^ Greene, Graham (April 9, 1937). "Winterset". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. pp. 141–143. ISBN 0192812866.)
^ "The 9th Academy Awards (1937) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 7, 2011.
^ "NY Times: Winterset". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2012. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2008.

References

Ross, Donna. Winterset, 1936. UCLA Film and Television Archive: 12th Festival of Preservation, July 22-August 21, 2004. Festival guest handbook.

External links

Winterset at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
Winterset at IMDb
Winterset is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive

[1] "Winterset: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved April 10, 2014.

[rko-2] Richard Jewel, 'RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994 p56

[3] Ross, 2004: “...blank verse gangster story (loosely based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case)...liberated from much of the poetic dialogue by screenwriter Anthony Veillier...”

[4] Ross, 2004: "Meridith would never become the [box office success the critics] predicted in reviews of Winterset."

[5] Greene, Graham (April 9, 1937). "Winterset". The Spectator. (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. pp. 141–143. ISBN 0192812866.)

[Oscars1937-6] "The 9th Academy Awards (1937) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved August 7, 2011.

[NY_Times-7] "NY Times: Winterset". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2012. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2008.

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