A Warm December


A Warm December is a 1973 American romantic drama film directed by Sidney Poitier and starring him in the lead role as Dr. Matt Younger. It also stars Jamaican actress Esther Anderson as Catherine, Matt's love interest. Anderson's performance as an African princess won her a NAACP Image Award for Best Actress in 1973. The film is also notable for an appearance of Letta Mbulu singing, with an African choir, "Nonqonqo" by Miriam Makeba. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson wrote and conducted the score.
The story was influenced by Roman Holiday and Love Story. It was shot at Pinewood Studios.

Plot

Dr. Matt Younger is a recently widowed American who takes his daughter on a month-long vacation in London. While there, he meets Catherine, the niece of an African Ambassador. Catherine is involved in negotiations with the Soviet Union to build a vital hydroelectric project in her country. As the pair begin to develop feelings for one another, Dr. Younger learns that the two men following Catherine are not the sinister characters he suspected. One is a bodyguard sent by her uncle, the other is a doctor monitoring the Sickle-cell disease that will end her life all too soon. She herself says that she is in the December of her life. When Dr. Younger proposes, Catherine must decide not only between love and loyalty to her country, but also between seizing the time that remains to her and saddling the man she loves with her inevitable death. In the end, she refuses, thanking him for a “warm December”.