Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

classicsoncall Going in, I had no idea that this film had it's inspiration in the famous Sacco-Vanzetti trial of 1927. Now that I do, I don't find that it makes much difference. I have some real problems with this picture, not the least of which is the way it brings the characters together. Case in point - the judge from the original murder trial of 1920 shows up as an amnesiac wanderer in a New York City slum, doesn't remember his own name, and then comes around to recall the events of a case for which he carries sixteen years of regret for not really knowing the truth of it. His crusade brings him to the exact location where a mobster (Eduardo Ciannelli), a witness to the original crime (Paul Guilfoyle) and the son of the convicted man sixteen years earlier (Burgess Meredith) all converge to set up a final climactic showdown in the battle of good versus evil. Now think about that - what are the odds? Overlooking these highly improbable aspects of the picture, I can see why some other reviewers on this board give it higher marks than mine. The characters are portrayed with earnest sentiment, and the overriding sense that justice must win in the end propels the picture forward. But I just couldn't escape the idea that gangster Estrella (Ciannelli) would have been left unscathed if he had just left things alone. He didn't seem to have anything to do with the trial that opened the picture, (he wasn't even there), and there was nothing in the story to implicate him or his associates in the payroll robbery crime. Yes, we saw him do it, but it seems no one else in the story did.You know, I like Burgess Meredith, and it was really cool to see him in a film he made forty years before becoming Sylvester Stallone's trainer in the Rocky movies. It gives you an idea how far he came as an actor from this, his first credited big screen role, and in the lead no less. He's surrounded by a handful of competent supporting players as well, notably the single named Margo as his love interest Miriamne, and Guilfoyle as the conflicted brother Esdras. But overall, I think the best performance here was John Carradine in his damning declaration of innocence to open the picture, a brief but moving encounter before the judge who would eventually lose his way. My compliments as well to director Alfred Santell for the effective use of those magnificent stone arches and alley ways, lent a particular sinister ambiance by the night time elements. Also for the clever way bad guy Estrella was brought to justice without ever getting to the bottom of the original case.

ronvieth Winterset starts out beautifully and profoundly. The story flows well, but the latter scenes are so implausibly constrained that I ended up losing sympathy for the characters. The dialog was hard to make sense of at times, and many of the movie's sequences look like dark scenes from a bad dream... you know, the kind of situation you just can't escape from.It looks as though, in the transition to turning the stage play into a movie, the makers never gave much thought to overcoming the obvious limitations that the stage imposes on what we now think of as the "action sequences".I don't regret the time spent watching Winterset. It was interesting, but as a movie (and even allowing for its vintage) it was just "OK".

nocrud222 Call it Vintage, if you will, but you will not call Winterset boring unless a world of interesting details bore you. The movie is full of sub-stories, full of details that bring back the early days of everyday troubled life for Americans, especially New Yorkers. While not actually typical, the story is one that hangs together.I suspect the story plot and actor management of the story were perfected on Broadway long before going to film. It is both engaging and fascinating for movie buffs who are students of the perfected B/W film and is a study in filmography which makes one wonder if this is not the height of perfection, if you will, concerning films of that genre: Good story, good delivery and good conclusion.The story is not one with a tragic ending for the principles. It is not one that builds up the viewer's expectations and hopes and then dashes them in the end. While there are hints of evil and tragedy, the people most deserving receive this end, the ones who deserve the best of the ending actually do get the best in the end.The organ music is superb for selection and for an almost hypnotic melody that plays on in one's head for some time afterward. A nice, pleasant melody. And on it hangs the turning point in the movie, a grand hook to hang the ending.The antics of the policeman is what one would expect of one of New York's finest of that era. A masterful job of acting.Most of all, Margo! She was again engaging, spell-binding and her job well-done. She caused the viewer to want to provide her sympathy from a good and kind father, who was incapable of doing all he could for his children, and to a brother who was caught up in a crime and later regretted it and who endeavored to correct his mistake. Again, superb acting.Overall, Winterset stands out as one of the most enjoyable movies I have ever watched. I try to share it with friends who have never seen it before. None who see it for the first time have been disappointed.

sasheegm-1 Maxwell Anderson's Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play was brought to the screen by RKO in 1936 with the original cast members, and Anderson himself adapting the Screen-Play.........The results were a hard-hitting expose' of injustice in the Judicial system of the 1920s........Based loosely on the Sacco-Vancetti trial of the 1920s, Anderson wrote a powerful adaptation of his Stage hit...........Burgess Meredith, along with Eduardo Ciannelli reprised their Stage roles as Mio, and Troc Estrella respectively in their first screen appearences......Both would go on to do scores of films and stage work for decades to come after Critic's raved about their work in "Winterset"......Set under the Brooklyn Bridge for most of the film, the characters involved in the injustice, assemble seeking the truth & to avoid it becoming public knowledge.........Ciannelli's "Troc Estrella" is one of the screens most dastardly bad guys of all time......and Stanley Ridges is a standout as "Shadow' his henchman...............The Musical score by Nathaniel Shilkret & Max Steiner(un-credited) was nominated for an Oscar.......It was so compelling in this Dark-Drama, that Orson Welles used portions of it in his film "Journey Into Fear'-1942....also released by RKO.......If you are a fan of fine Dramatic Acting, superb musical scoring, and very early film noir(1936)....you should see "Winterset.......Tense, Poetic, and spell-binding....It is available on Video and DVD at Amazon.com, for a very low price.......Respectively submitted, sasheegm at the movies