Winter Meeting (1948)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Bretaigne Windust

Writers:

Grace Zaring Stone (novel)
Catherine Turney (writer)

Release Date:

7 April 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

No woman was ever happier to be next to the man she loves !

Plot:

Spinster poetess Susan Grieve lives in a Manahattan apartment where naval hero Slick Novak comes with her for a nightcap...

Plot Keywords:

Spinster | Connecticut | Poetess | Forgiveness | Loss Of Faith

Cast

Bette Davis	...	Susan Grieve
Janis Paige	...	Peggy Markham
Jim Davis	...	Slick Novak (as James Davis)
John Hoyt	...	Stacy Grant
Florence Bates	...	Mrs. Castle
Walter Baldwin	...	Mr. Castle
Ransom M. Sherman	...	Mr. Roderick Moran, Jr. (as Ransom Sherman)
Woody Herman	...	Himself - Leader, Woody Herman and His Orchestra (as Woody Herman and His Orchestra)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:S

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Movie Connections:

Referenced in All About Bette (1994) (TV)

Soundtrack:

You Do Something to Me

Bette Davis' Poet Susan Greive & John Hoyt's Stacey Grant

It takes good critiquing skills to fully appreciate the surprisingly seductive subtleties of Bette Davis during her motion picture making prime. Winter Meeting is an intellectual's & critic's delight. Davis doesn't ever step out of her leading role as an extremely constrained character, Susan Greive. I can't find a flaw in her meticulous performance. The story is also of interest to the period when it was filmed.

Bette Davis at 40yo & 59 films into the height of her acting career, stars as an accomplished, upscale poet, Susan Grieve. Although Grieve is well traveled from soliciting her literary work, she resides in a posh brownstone in NYC. Her closest friend & confidant is an old-monied dapper gentleman, complete with the social graces of exquisitely good taste, Stacy Grant (43yo John Hoyt).

Believing that his secretary Peggy Markham (Janis Paige) will seduce a visiting war hero, Slick Novak (James Davis), Grant arranges a dinner party for the foursome, including the very reserved & demure Grieve (Davis). Instead, Novak instantly falls for the ever so proper poet who has no romantic interests.

After Grieve & Novak engage in a private romance, she's romantically awakened in a way that she's never been before. As such, Grieve is falling in love with Novak. Something has to go wrong to upset as fine a romance as theirs, doesn't it? It always does....

This film offers no exception. Novak has a closely guarded secret that he discloses to Grieve that changes everything between them.

I found the best on-screen chemistry to be between Davis & Hoyt. Davis comes off as the kind of woman who enjoys being around elegant men who aren't hounding after women; perhaps even gay men. Hoyt fits that that image to a T. Their ultra close friendship is worth more than any romance~