Before Winter Comes

1969

1h 43m

IMDb RATING

5.9/10

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Drama

Comedy

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.

Directors

J. Lee Thompson

Writers

Andrew Sinclair(screenplay by)

Stars

David Niven

Chaim Topol

Anna Karina

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Top cast

Major Burnside

Janovic

Maria

Lieutenant Pilkington

Brigadier Bewley

Captain Kamenev

Sergeant Woody

Count Kerassy

Kovacs

Komenski

Russian Major

Beata

Bill

Ted

Johnny

Russian Corporal

Joe

Directors

Writers

Andrew Sinclair(screenplay by)

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Review

Featured review

6/10

David Niven stars in this rather unremarkable post-war comedy drama set in an Austrian camp that sorts out and repatriates displaced people. He leads the British contingent with Ori Levy ("Capt. Kamenev") his Russian counterpart with whom he has an uneasy sort of truce. Topol is their charismatic interpreter/peace broker "Janovic" who oils the wheels of their procedures - but he has a secret and when Niven and the Russian find out, he finds life becomes quite precarious. The comedy struggles, to be honest - Niven tries hard, but Topol too hard - neither seem to really want to be here. The presence of the naively optimistic young "Lieut. Pilkington" (John Hurt) and the cynical "Brig. Bewley" (Anthony Quayle) - who is aware of an incident in Niven's past, suggests that there is an underlying message in the film, but nothing really hits home. There are duty versus compassion clashes, and imperialist versus communist ones too - but the setting and characterisations don't support any real substance to these, and the films flails a bit before an ending that is surprisingly robust.

Geronimo196703 Jun, 2023