Winterset (1936)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Alfred Santell

Writers:

Maxwell Anderson (play)
Anthony Veiller (writer)

Release Date:

3 December 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Immigrant radical Bartolomeo Romagna is falsely condemned and executed for a payroll robbery. Years later...

Plot Keywords:

Wrongful Conviction | Agitator | Revenge | Brother Sister Relationship | Anarchist

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

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

Runtime:

77 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor System)

Certification:

Norway:16 (1937) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:(Banned) | USA:Approved

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Burgess Meredith, in his film debut, recreates the role he played in the original Broadway production.

Movie Connections:

Version of Winterset (1945) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Siboney

Dark Drama....At It's Finest

Maxwell Anderson's Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play was brought to the screen by RKO in 1936 with the original cast members, and Anderson himself adapting the Screen-Play.........The results were a hard-hitting expose' of injustice in the Judicial system of the 1920s........Based loosely on the Sacco-Vancetti trial of the 1920s, Anderson wrote a powerful adaptation of his Stage hit...........Burgess Meredith, along with Eduardo Ciannelli reprised their Stage roles as Mio, and Troc Estrella respectively in their first screen appearences......Both would go on to do scores of films and stage work for decades to come after Critic's raved about their work in "Winterset"......Set under the Brooklyn Bridge for most of the film, the characters involved in the injustice, assemble seeking the truth & to avoid it becoming public knowledge.........Ciannelli's "Troc Estrella" is one of the screens most dastardly bad guys of all time......and Stanley Ridges is a standout as "Shadow' his henchman...............The Musical score by Nathaniel Shilkret & Max Steiner(un-credited) was nominated for an Oscar.......It was so compelling in this Dark-Drama, that Orson Welles used portions of it in his film "Journey Into Fear'-1942....also released by RKO.......If you are a fan of fine Dramatic Acting, superb musical scoring, and very early film noir(1936)....you should see "Winterset.......Tense, Poetic, and spell-binding....It is available on Video and DVD at Amazon.com, for a very low price.......Respectively submitted, sasheegm at the movies