Out of Season movie storyline. In this tense story of an unusual romantic triangle, middle-aged Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) and her teenage daughter Joanna (Susan George) manage a failing hotel on an island off the British coast. One day, the hotel receives an unexpected guest, a man named Joe (Cliff Robertson). Joe and Ann had an affair years ago, and it’s suggested (though never stated) that Joanna could be their child.
Joe and Ann soon renew their relationship, but Ann discovers that she has a rival for Joe’s affections when Joanna makes her interest in the handsome older man clear. Also shown under the title Winter Rates (the title of the stage drama upon which it was based), Out of Season was at one time to have been directed by the noted playwright Harold Pinter, but he was eventually replaced by stage and screen veteran Alan Bridges.
Out of Season is a 1975 British drama film directed by Alan Bridges, and starring Vanessa Redgrave, Susan George, and Cliff Robertson. It was produced by Lorimar Productions and entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. Out of Season was filmed at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, and on location in Dorset, primarily at the Isle of Portland. The sets were designed by the art director Robert Jones. The film was originally titled Winter Rates and was announced by Daily Variety in 1974 to be starring Redgrave and Oliver Reed. It had an expected budget of approximately $500,000.
Reviews for Out of Season
Variety said: “Virtually a three-hander, Out of Season boasts top-notch performances by Redgrave, Robertson and George, a taut script and first-rate direction. Bridges displays his ability to develop and hold obsessive situations, all hints and innuendos, and this ping pong match of the affections often has the suspense of a whodunit.”
TV Guide awarded the film three stars, commenting: “A small cast in a tight environment makes this film look like exactly what it is – a stage play adapted for the screen.”
Time Out noted: “The super-smooth Alan Bridges finds himself landed with an impossible project. The dire script wrings every possible cliché out of the situation. The biggest mystery is why this stagey stuff was filmed at all, and why a cast of this calibre should have bothered.”
Texas Monthly said: “Out of Season cannot be tolerated at any time of year. If ever a project called for an executioner, this was it, and the presence of Redgrave, Robertson, George and the underrated director Alan Bridges, should not fool anyone into thinking that this frail mash note to father-daughter sex is a Certified Art Film.”
Film Review Digest Annual wrote: “With Out of Season, it’s a shame that so much tender loving care was expended on so uninteresting a film. Whatever it was in Reuben Bercovitch and Eric Bercovici’s wan story that intrigued England’s gifted Alan Bridges fails to come across.”
Out of Season (1975)
Directed by: Alan Bridges
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Cliff Robertson, Susan George, Edward Evans, Frank Jarvis
Screenplay by: Eric Bercovici, Reuben Bercovitch
Production Design by: Denis Johnson
Cinematography by: Arthur Ibbetson
Film Editing by: Peter Weatherley
Art Direction by: Robert Jones
Makeup Department: Richard Mills, Barbara Sutton
Music by: John Cameron
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: EMI Film Distributors
Release Date: November 16, 1975 (Chicago International Film Festival)
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