Libby Meredith (Ingrid Bergman) is the dutiful wife of college professor Roger Meredith. They are traditional and do not approve of their daughter's personal pursuit away from her family obligations. Roger is on sabbatical writing a book. The couple leaves New York City for the country where Libby finds flirtatious neighbor Will Cade (Anthony Quinn).There is a promise of an epic romance. It has the great pairing of Bergman and Quinn. It should be incredible. Libby as a conservative matriarch is set up to join the sexual revolution. I like the conflict between mother and daughter. I don't buy Anthony Quinn as an American, let alone a southerner. This should be a battle for Libby's heart and mind by the two men. There is a sudden twist that short-circuits the confrontation. In short, I don't like the twist which comes out of nowhere. Otherwise, the two leads and the premise provide interesting viewing.

(I talk around spoilers so my reviews are spoilish sometimes.) I've seen a zillion movies. Like you I know all the big names of big directors. Love movies by Kubrick, Spielberg, Woody Allen -- the classics. But for some reason my wife and I really bonded with two movies by a director we had never heard of: Guy Green.In our living room hang two framed pictures of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and A PATCH OF BLUE. Guy Green's best films, the latter a masterwork. My wife loves Piazza. She's not alone. It's been turned into a musical. My heart is with PATCH. Both movies are about people finding each other that desperately need each other.I just joined FILMSTRUCK -- an online streaming version of TCM. It offered up this film, Guy Green's A WALK IN THE SPRING RAIN. Had to see it.Again -- we have two people finding each other -- but this time the desperation isn't so desperate. Ingrid and Anthony aren't utterly alone. They're married. So it's the land of infidelity this time -- which is an entire different ball of wax that PIAZZA and PATCH.One of the other reviewers on this page touched upon a central problem. Almost everyone in this cast was miscast. Quinn simply doesn't pull of a Tennessee mountain man. He's CLEARLY someone who moved to these mountains from Europe and it could have taken all of 2 minutes of dialog to fix this central flaw. It would have helped the story as well -- to learn he was more of a traveler type but that got stuck because of his wife and kid.The actor playing his son? Beach boy from Malibu. Quinn's wife? They overdid her Christian country backwards thing. We simply don't believe he'd 'settle' for her based upon his reaction to Ingrid. I mean if he's such a man of the world and elements what attracted him about this doorknob of a person? Contrived.Another reviewer above mentioned how 'pushy' Quinn is. And it's true. Out of the gate he makes it clear he'd do Ingrid. Practically in front of her husband. And so we cringe half the time in this movie. You even had to wonder if he was going to rape her -- considering how pushy he was in his flirting.And so Quinn is where this entire feature misfires. He's doing a fine job of being himself but the script forgot to write him in properly. And there was absolutely no nuance here that is all over the similar and way better BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. If you told me BRIDGES was offered as a rewrite of this I'd believe you.No, seriously. Do you remember the last scene in BRIDGES? It spoils nothing to say there's a lot of rain. Well... where's the rain in this movie? THE WALK IN THE SPRING RAIN? Nowhere. Did it get edited out? I suspect that pivotal scene where Ingrid walks up that sandy road was where the rain was supposed to be. Maybe they were counting on rain which never showed and had no money to fake it. But then why call this movie that poetic title without delivering the visual poetry. I mean what if BRIDGES didn't actually show you any bridges? Right? This bumpiness hampers what could have been a far better movie. It's not so bad as to avoid. And it's better than most movies today in many ways.That's the kind of bumpiness that's here.

The only "suspense" is whether Ingrid & Anthony will really hook up or not and be found out. The violence is the encounters between Anthony and his rebellious son, in the "I see .... you want to fight the old man eh" vein. It's more like a combo of The Bridges of Madison County and Li'l Abner, but infinitely worse ! Madison was more romantic and had better dialog and at least Li'l Abner had good tunes. Ingrid Bergman remains dignified throughout; Anthony Quinn is once again channeling Zorba, but with less gusto and a slow Appalachian drawl; Virginia Gregg as his wife, doing a bitter old Mammy Yokum impression, is the (unintended) comic relief, as is the"repartee" between the father and the rebellious son every time they meet. The only actor more or less perfect for the part is Fritz Weaver, a rather stodgy actor, in the type of part he often played in movies.Not a film that anyone involved can be proud of.

This is an excellent film which I caught accidentally on a rainy afternoon on cable. A professor and his wife head to the appalachians for his 1-year sabbatical. They rent a house from Will Cade (Anthony Quinn), an overly-friendly, hospitable country bumpkin. Will from the very beginning makes comments about how pretty the professor's wife is, and that's just the beginning. While the absent-minded professor is lost in his own world, concerned about his career and completing his book, Will Cade seems to just have too much time on his hands and spends it making the professor's wife more familiar with the wonders of Appalachia. He brings her flowers from the countryside, buys her animals to keep her company, takes her to see the beautiful scenery. None of these are overt passes, but they all could be interpreted either way, which is part of the genius of the film: on the one hand, Will Cade really is doing a lot of things for this woman and anyone would be touched by them; he is extremely sincere. But on the other, there is something about him which makes you uncomfortable, maybe his over-familiarity with people he doesn't know. In this way, it's similar to Cape Fear since it indirectly says a lot about social class--the professor is overly intellectual, but passionless and emotionally handicapped, unable to think of others besides himself; while the country bumpkin is not wordly, but very genuine and giving. There are two other subplots involved a daughter of the professor and his wife, and the Will Cade's son, with whom he has conflicts which are never fully explained. Eventually, the woman gives in and kisses Cade, and I won't give away the rest of the story. But the mood of the film is very well set. There is a great scene at an appalachian country fair where Will is in rare form and the professor is clearly uncomfortable in this "culture" which he doesn't consider a "culture". The whole story is set in this haunting, appalachian environment, which is how it is similar to "Deliverance". There is that fantasy which urban dwellers have of the simple, personal country life, and then there's the in-breeding, backwardness, and so-on they are repulsed by. I highly recommend this film.