A Warm December

Much like 1965’s A Patch of Blue, 1973’s A Warm December finds Sidney Poitier as healing presence for a woman. The major difference is that A Warm December plays like a combination of Roman Holiday and Love Story, but with an all-black cast. Poitier is a widower who travels to London and meets Catherine (Ester Anderson), a mysterious woman who asks for his help in eluding a man following her. Turns out she’s the daughter of an African diplomat. We quickly dissolve into numerous montages of the couple mooing about London until faster than you can say “love means never having to say you’re sorry,” she comes down with a fictional movie illness. Poitier also directed this mildly laughable romantic melodrama and his unwavering sophistication and class means A Warm December continually avoids any campy excess that might’ve saved it. Or, at least, given a discernible personality. Call me heartless, but this predictable tearjerker just proved that the races are equal when it comes to making bad, schmaltzy art.