''A Walk in the Spring Rain'' is a 1970 American

romantic drama film Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey ...

in Eastmancolor made by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

, directed by Guy Green and produced by

Stirling Silliphant Stirling Dale Silliphant (January 16, 1918 – April 26, 1996) was an American screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his screenplay for '' In the Heat of the Night'', for which he won an Academy Award in 1967, and for creating ...

, from his own

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, f ...

based on the novel by Rachel Maddux. Outside location scenes were filmed in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, w ...

, Gatlinburg, Tennessee and

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the stat ...

. The film stars

Ingrid Bergman Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary '' Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is ofte ...

and

Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known professionally as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental v ...

, with Fritz Weaver, Katherine Crawford, and

Virginia Gregg Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

. The music score was by

Elmer Bernstein Elmer Bernstein ( '; April 4, 1922August 18, 2004) was an American composer and conductor. In a career that spanned over five decades, he composed "some of the most recognizable and memorable themes in Hollywood history", including over 150 origi ...

and the cinematography by Charles Lang. Martial arts superstar

Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines th ...

, a personal friend of producer Stirling Silliphant, choreographed the fight between Will Cade (Anthony Quinn) and his son.

Plot

Libby Meredith and her law-professor husband, Roger, 52, move from New York to a small house in the Tennessee backwoods during a snowy winter. Their married neighbor, Will Cade, is attracted to Libby and very helpful and friendly to them. While her intellectual husband is busy writing a book, Libby comes to like the country life and finds herself attracted to Will's rural sensibilities, culminating in a brief affair. Libby is surprised when her daughter, Ellen, arrives to ask them to return to New York so Libby can help raise grandson Bucky while Ellen attends Harvard Law School. Will's erratic son, who had seen his father and Libby embracing in the woods, molests her when she is out walking. Will rescues her but accidentally kills his son in rescuing her from his clutches. After attending the funeral, the disillusioned Merediths decide to return to New York because they have drifted apart, Roger has failed to finish his book, and Ellen needs Libby for Bucky. When Libby bids the Cades goodbye, he follows her for a private conversation and says he will wait for her to return, but she says she no longer believes in miracles. The last scene, very similar to the first one, shows Libby wearing the same clothes and picking up Bucky from school, and part of the song "A Walk in the Spring Rain" plays over the end credits.

Production and release

Writer-producer Stirling Silliphant heard about Bergman's interest in the 1966 Rachel Maddux novel, ''A Walk in the Spring Rain'', and she joined the project. It was her first American film in more than 20 years. Silliphant and would-be director Kevin Billington had a creative disagreement, and Guy Green directed. Production was slated for West Virginia, but was moved to the Tennessee part of the Great Smoky Mountains and the national park, primarily the Cades Cove area. Some filming was done in nearby Knoxville and in Gatlinburg, which borders the park; the Merediths spend a weekend at the Gatlinburg Motor Inn (now The Gatlinburg Inn) on Parkway and do some shopping along the street. Rehearsals began in April 1968, and principal photography started in April 1969. It moved to New York City in May or early June and was delayed a day when thieves stole $250,000 worth of equipment. Replacement gear was brought in from Los Angeles. The world premiere was held April 9, 1970, as part of Knoxville's annual Dogwood Arts Festival. "Critical reception was largely negative, and the film proved to be a commercial failure," according to the American Film Institute Catalog. A book, ''Fiction Into Film: A Walk in the Spring Rain,'' was published in 1970 by the University of Tennessee Press. It included Maddux's novel, Silliphant's screenplay, and commentary by Neil D. Isaacs “on the fashioning of the script and various stages of production,” according to the Oct. 1 ''Variety''.

Cast

as Will Cade *

as Libby Meredith * Fritz Weaver as Roger Meredith * Katherine Crawford as Ellen Meredith * Tom Holland as Boy (as Tom Fielding) *

as Ann Cade * Mitchell Silberman as Bucky * Janet Nelson Chadwick as Singer at Festival (segment "Oh Shenandoah")

Notes

* Bergman and Quinn had previously been teamed in '' The Visit'' (1964).

References

External links