Come Next Spring

This rural drama set in 1920s Arkansas is a thoroughly winning film, full of charm and sentiment balanced by straightforward honesty and a trace of grit. Talented screenwriter Montgomery Pittman creates a believable situation involving a ne'er-do-well alcoholic husband (Steve Cochran) who returns to his wife (Ann Sheridan) and family years after abandoning them, hoping to make amends. The wife, however, has learned to manage well on her own, and the way she reacts to this unexpected reappearance is breathtakingly direct and no-nonsense. The leads are terrific; Cochran produced this movie for himself and it shows off his talent extremely well. In fact, the great Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni must have been impressed, because he starred Cochran in the drama Il Grido two years later. I seem to recall that Pittman was also involved with that film. Pittman later wrote some rural-themed episodes for The Twilight Zone, one of which stars James Best, who has a small role in Come Next Spring. Earl Hamner, also a Twilight Zone writer, seems to have taken several hints from Pittman when he came to create The Waltons; the character of the Walton mother, especially as played by Patricia Neal in The Homecoming, is quite reminiscent of Sheridan's performance. An article in New York magazine several years ago revealed that Martin Scorsese is a great admirer of Come Next Spring, which is an urgent candidate for video/DVD release.