Normally, saying a movie is predictable is a bad thing. However, just as with books, sometimes you want to see a nice, schmaltzy and very predictable film....and "Come Next Spring" fits the bill.

The story is set in 1920s Arkansas and begins with Matt Ballot (Steve Cochran) arriving home for the first time in nine years. During his absence, his wife was forced to raise their two children. But apparently drinking was more important to Matt....and he spent most of his time away boozing it up. But he claims to be clean and sober and has stopped by to see his kids. He says he only plans to make the visit brief, but the kids seem to idolize him....and she asks him to stay. Where does all this go? And, what about his daughter's affliction? See the film....you'll enjoy it.

The acting was just fine and the writing predictable but good...and my wife and I greatly enjoyed the movie. Well worth seeing.

A young Tony Bennett sings the theme song over the opening credits of Come Next Spring a nice family film set in Arkansas during the Twenties. The leads are Ann Sheridan and Steve Cochran two players who you would not think of in casting such a film.

Sheridan was not known as the Oomph Girl for nothing and Cochran was usually cast as smooth talking, but rough gangster types. Cochran had a hand in producing Come Next Spring and he plays an absentee father come home to his wife and two children, one of whom he never knew he had. It was a bitter parting, after an automobile accident which left daughter Sherry Jackson mute, Cochran went all to seed and left. Sheridan raised her kids alone for the past twelve years and gave birth to Richard Eyer posthumously.

Cochran tries his best to win his wife again, but she's definitely taking a wait and see attitude. Cochran also has competition from one of the locals Sonny Tufts who's a real lout and keeps trying to bait Cochran into fisticuffs.

Movie music fans will see and note that Max Steiner did the score for Come Next Spring and through a good deal of the running time he used his Oscar nominated theme from another film with a rural setting Sergeant York. It works well in this film also.

The rest of the cast is populated with people who were veterans of rural set pictures like Walter Brennan, Harry Shannon, Roscoe Ates, Edgar Buchanan and James Best. Come Next Spring came out at the tail end of Republic Picture's history and ironically enough Republic whose main source of income was B western cowboys and John Wayne where Herbert J. Yates saw pure profit in selling his services to the major studios for their films were both pretty much gone now. Yet at the end this dying studio did occasionally put out some good product.

One of those good products is Come Next Spring a film that holds up well for family viewing.

In 1920s Arkansas, Steve Cochrane returns after a dozen years. He says he's given up the booze, but wife Ann Sheridan is skeptical.

It's a well told story, like Faulkner without the creeps, with a typically fine performance by Walter Brennan; Republic could turn out good middle-brow pictures, so long as they were not too demanding. Their audiences wanted entertainment, and this low-key tale of penance and redemption shows all the performers to their advantage. Director R.G. Springsteen was a talented journeyman director, who got good performances and had an eye for scenery. Cinematographer had run the camera for some Raoul Walsh movies in the 1920s before getting stuck in B westerns.