The Vintage

I've suggested in the past that the Production Code caused problems for quite a few movies in that there was no satisfactory way to end the movie while also satisfying the strictures of the Code. I couldn't help but think about that as I was watching The Vintage.

MGM filmed this movie on location in the south of France, presumably thanks to capital controls. But the movie starts off just over the border in Italy, as border guards from Italy are warning their counterparts just over the French border to be on the lookout for a couple of brothers as one of them is wanted by the Italian police. Sure enough, we almost immediately cut to those two brothers.

Not only that, but the brothers are crossing the border illicitly. Giancarlo (Mel Ferrer) is the elder brother, while Ernesto (John Kerr -- and wrap your mind around those two being brothers) is the younger brother, and the one wanted in Italy. Giancarlo is devoted enough to his brother that he's willing to make a lot of sacrifices to keep his brother safe. But Ernesto is getting to the point that he doesn't want to be that sort of burden on his brother any longer.

More importantly, the two need food and a roof over their heads. So they stop at each of the farms, which here are mostly vineyards, and ask if the owners need any help with the harvest. They eventually find there might be the possibility of work at the place owned by Louis Morel (Leif Erickson), who has a wife Léone (Michèle Morgan) and two kids, as well as an extended family which includes Léone's sister Lucienne (Pier Angeli).

But Morel has traditionally hired on Eduardo (Theodore Bikel in a role that at the beginning of the decade probably would have been given to Gilbert Roland) who leads a work gang of his "cousins". They get in a sort of scrap with Giancarlo and Ernesto that's like the one in The Adventures of Robin Hood where Robin and Little John become friends in a fight over the river. More importantly, it means Eduardo will stand up for the brothers when the authorities keep coming around.

Meanwhile, Giancarlo finds himself falling for Lucienne, while Ernesto falls for Léone. The latter one is an obvious problem, since she's married but trapped in what she feels is becoming a loveless marriage as Louis seems more interested in the vineyards than her. But Louis is also uncomfortable with the idea of Lucienne falling in love with an itinerant laborer, and frankly, it's not difficult to understand why.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the movie was made under the Production Code, so you know that sooner or later, the authorities are going to get to the point where they figure out it's Ernesto they're looking for. And the movie has no good way to resolve this problem, which is a pretty big issue for a movie like this.

That's not the only issue The Vintage has. I felt as though not only were Ferrer and Kerr unlikely brothers; they were also unlikely romantic leads. Or at least, the script doesn't let them show off whether they had the qualities to play romantic leads. They both feel terribly cold. On the bright side, however, the location shooting is lovely, with the one caveat that I always notice the focus issues when Cinemascope of that era pans.

It's a shame that The Vintage isn't nearly as good a movie as it had the potential to be.