Come Next Spring
Directed by R.G. Springsteen
Written by Montgomery Pittman
1956/USA
Republic Pictures/Robert Alexander Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”… “It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
This is a heartwarming story about family life in the rural South. The acting carries it.
Matt Ballott (Steve Cochran) returns to his family farm after eight years on the road. Before he left he was known as the town drunk. His two children, Annie (around 12) and Abraham (around 8) are glad to see him. His wife Bess (Ann Sheridan) is not so sure. But when she sees how much the kids need him and notices a change, she takes him on strictly to help out around the place. Neighbor Mr. Canary (Edgar Buchanan) is willing to give him a chance too. The rest of the people that knew him basically want nothing to do with him, especially Leroy Hightower (Sunny Tufts) who has been unsuccessfully attempting to court Bess.
Most of the film revolves around Matt’s journey in reestablishing relationships with all these people. We also get a tornado, a big slugging match, and a dramatic rescue for good measure. With Walter Brennan as Bess’s sharecropper.
I have always liked Steve Cochran and Ann Sheridan and both are excellent here. This is a rare good guy part for Cochran, who usually plays the heavy. The plot is somewhat contrived — Annie has been a mute since Matt drunkenly crashed the family car when she was a toddler — but I forgave it because of the fine cast and the genuine emotion in the writing.
Clip
I can see how a person could overlook flaws in the plot, with this cast. I’ll watch out for this one – thanks!
I liked all the small moments between Ann Sheridan and Steve Cochran the best but the rest of the cast is rock solid.
I remember this as a B picture I saw in the 50s that was better than the A picture it shared the bill with. The two leads were at the end of their careers and they were touching and real. It’s a sweet picture, already old when it was new, and hard to find for a long time. Glad to know you enjoyed it too.
After a few months and more than a hundred other movies, this also lingers very pleasantly in my memory. It’s so nice to see a movie about the lives of grown-ups.
Republic Pictures produced some wonderful but neglected movies as good as any big-budget major-studio classic, and COME NEXT SPRING is one of them. These treasures often gave underrated or typecast actors the opportunity to blossom in quality productions, and Ann Sheridan and Steve Cochran deserved Oscars for their superb performances in this magical ‘sleeper’. My thanks to Turner Classic Movies for showing a gorgeous Trucolor print of this sublime family drama that was ignored by critics and moviegoers as it was thrown away as the bottom-billed ‘filler’ of double-features when it was released in 1956. It makes me forgive Martin Scorsese whose acclaimed gangster movies I hate for calling attention to this forgotten masterpiece!
Agree completely. Thanks for commenting!