Such a frustrating disappointment

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is a much more than your typical Bette Davis melodrama. Here, Davis plays a NYC poetess (Susan Grieve), who runs around in high social circles. One of her society friends, Stacy Grant (John Hoyt), invites her to dine with him as he entertains a navel hero, Slick Novak (Jim Davis, Jock Ewing from TV's Dallas) who is staying briefly in town. Stacy's idea was to make Susan his date while pairing Novak up with his secretary, Peggy Markham (Janis Paige). However, the evening doesn't go as planned, since Novak falls for Susan rather than Peggy and invites himself into Susan's house after the evening's entertainment. In spite of Susan and Novak not hitting it off too well at first, they start to talk. They soon discover--after driving to Susan's family farm in CT--that they each have unresolved issues from their past. Susan's problem has to do with her dead father; how her mother had treated him which lead him to commit suicide. Susan never forgave her mother for her cheapness. However, Novak's insistence that Susan had not tried to see her mother's side of the issue leaves Susan to question her own beliefs. Novak's unresolved issue is spiritual in nature. Since he had been 16, he had always felt a strong need to enter the priesthood and had been discouraged from this by talking to a priest before entering the Navy. The two help each other to resolve these some of these issues. In the end, this is not so much of a romantic story between a man and a woman as it is a mutual guidance about leading each other to spiritual epiphanies (or sudden moments of soulful clarity) of how to proceed with their lives. P.S. This is one of those movies in which the two leading co-stars stare the last name: Davis & Davis.

Yankee poetess meets Slick Novak...and only God can come between them! Absurd sudser from Warner Bros. stars Bette Davis as an independent spinster and poetry writer in Manhattan who is thrown together on a double date with a celebrated war hero: a tall, broad-shouldered Naval Lieutenant who appears to bring out the worst in the not-so-old Old Maid. Jack Warner probably took one look at this material, adapted from a book by Ethel Vance, and instantly thought of Davis for the lead...but what else was there to this story which caused Warner to want to film it? The picture is distinctly without distinction, and Ms. Davis, puffing away on one cigarette after another, is forced to repeat herself (her performance is like a greatest hits collection). James Davis, playing the conflicted Slick Novak, towers over his co-star and is obviously not in her acting league, however there's enough professionalism on both sides of the camera to nearly pull off this odd romantic pairing. The wordy screenplay is colorless, and Max Steiner's melodramatic music cues are of no help, yet romance-buffs might get caught up in the story, nonsensical though it may be. ** from ****

It takes good critiquing skills to fully appreciate the surprisingly seductive subtleties of Bette Davis during her motion picture making prime. Winter Meeting is an intellectual's & critic's delight. Davis doesn't ever step out of her leading role as an extremely constrained character, Susan Greive. I can't find a flaw in her meticulous performance. The story is also of interest to the period when it was filmed. Bette Davis at 40yo & 59 films into the height of her acting career, stars as an accomplished, upscale poet, Susan Grieve. Although Grieve is well traveled from soliciting her literary work, she resides in a posh brownstone in NYC. Her closest friend & confidant is an old-monied dapper gentleman, complete with the social graces of exquisitely good taste, Stacy Grant (43yo John Hoyt).Believing that his secretary Peggy Markham (Janis Paige) will seduce a visiting war hero, Slick Novak (James Davis), Grant arranges a dinner party for the foursome, including the very reserved & demure Grieve (Davis). Instead, Novak instantly falls for the ever so proper poet who has no romantic interests.After Grieve & Novak engage in a private romance, she's romantically awakened in a way that she's never been before. As such, Grieve is falling in love with Novak. Something has to go wrong to upset as fine a romance as theirs, doesn't it? It always does....This film offers no exception. Novak has a closely guarded secret that he discloses to Grieve that changes everything between them.I found the best on-screen chemistry to be between Davis & Hoyt. Davis comes off as the kind of woman who enjoys being around elegant men who aren't hounding after women; perhaps even gay men. Hoyt fits that image to a T. Their ultra close friendship is worth more than any romance~

The first thirty minutes may repel some.It's very talky ,it's filmed stage production style.This is a film which grows on you,you 've got to be patient for the "action" is minimal,and most amazing thing, in what is pure psychological drama ,there's not the easy way out : the flashbacks.Another director -it's the first film I've seen by Bretaigne Windust-would have at least enlivened things by introducing two very long flashbacks dealing with the two characters' past.Both have a secret to conceal .This is the very long conversation between them which reveals us that the poetess was demanding,idolizing her father,displaying no compassion for a mother who did not live up to her /their expectations;the soldier is a hero but someone told him something that has completely changed his way of seeing things .People who expect a mushy romance ,a melodrama ,a love triangle (with the secretary) will be disappointed."Winter Meeting" shows the way to compassion for the others,be they hopeless.