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Before Winter Comes main poster

Before Winter Comes

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5.9/10 • 13

1969-01-171h 43m

DramaComedy

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
Editors
Willy Kemplen

Top Billed Cast

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  1. David Niven

    David Niven

    Major Burnside

  2. Topol

    Topol

    Janovic

  3. Anna Karina

    Anna Karina

    Maria

  4. John Hurt

    John Hurt

    Lieutenant Pilkington

  5. Anthony Quayle

    Anthony Quayle

    Brigadier Bewley

  6. Ori Levy

    Ori Levy

    Captain Kamenev

  7. John Collin

    John Collin

    Sergeant Woody

  8. Karl Stepanek

    Karl Stepanek

    Count Kerassy

  9. Guy Deghy

    Guy Deghy

    Kovacs

Reviews1

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Jun 3, 2023

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.

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
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