Before Winter Comes

 (UK)

By VARIETY STAFF

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Columbia/Windward. Director J. Lee Thompson; Producer Robert Emmett Ginns; Screenplay Andrew Sinclair; Camera Gil Taylor; Editor Willy Kemplen; Music Ron Grainer; Art Director John Blezard
 
David Niven
Topol
Anna Karina
John Hurt
Anthony Quayle
Ori Levy
 

An unevenly-scripted, confusingly-directed drama about the treatment of displaced persons in Austria immediately following VE Day. Before Winter Comes is a modestly-budgeted British drama about conflict between military authority and humanistic concepts in the peacetime army.

David Niven turns in his usual competent professional job as a major assigned to run a camp for displaced persons during the spring of 1945. Topol is the multilingual magician from among the DPs whom Niven chooses to assist him in deciding who should be turned over to American and who to Russian authorities.

To its basic military story [from short story The Interpreter by Frederick L. Keefe] film tries to add a Zorba the Greek aspect, with Topol representing an earthy life-force counter to Niven's harsh rigidity.

Nothing dims Topol's impact. He exudes a romantic masculinity not without sexual charm at the same time that he shows a formidable comedic timing and grace.

(Color) Extract of a review from 1969. Running time: 107 MIN.