The Rain People

source: The Rain People

What a horrible long, slow, boring movie. I specifically went on here to check ratings. People rated this high, & the critics rated this high. It has one of my favorite actors in it Robert Duvall. So I rented it. From the moment it started I was wanting to fast forward. Long scenes of nothing but her in her car driving-seen from a distance. How boring is that? Then all these scenes of her at pay phone booths calling her husband. How much more boring can a movie get if for the first 20 minutes you see nothing but a car driving from a distance? Then you see her pull over at a pay phone & call her husband who screams & yells at her to come home. Then she picks up a hitch hiker who turns out to be a guy who's brain damaged from football. No good conversation will come from him. They drive around aimlessly neither one has an idea where to go or what they want out of life. Booorrrring. The last 10 minutes are the only bit of excitement you'll get out of this. She gets a speeding ticket & the cop (Robert Duvall) asks her out. She goes to the cop's moterhome & they get all lovey dovey. She decides she's made a mistake & tries to leave. He says he's not letting her leave. The next thing we know braindamaged ex-football star breaks in & saves her from getting raped. The cop has a little girl who finds her Daddy's gun & shoots ex-football star who's beating up her Daddy. The end. Depressing boring movie. Do yourself a favor & watch something else.

This is a film that when you say James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Shirley Knight, with Francis Ford Coppola writing and directing, you'd expect an 8 or 9 rating. When you watch the film, it does not quite live up to the sum of these parts. There are a few reasons. Shirley Knight is brilliant, and her character is addressing the issue of Roe V Wade (1973) here 4 years before the court decision. I credit Coppola for bringing that into the plot. What gets hard to understand is that she runs away because she is pregnant from her husband, not sure if she is going to be a good mother, and not sure of anything it seems. The script has her calling her husband, yet it does not really explain if she loves her husband, though I suspect not. James Caan is very good as the brain damaged football player whose nickname is killer and who has been given $1,000 to leave the college he got injured in a game at. It is not a big dialogue role which had to be tough for the talkative Caan but he brings it off pretty well. Duvall is the lonely cop whose wife died in a fire and comes into the picture pulling Knight over for speeding and decides he wants to use Knight to replace the departed one. Knight's conflict in my opinion is not explained well enough and that is the weakness in this one. If that were explained better, the film would hook the viewer more. Because of her considerable talent Shirley does hook the viewer in late in the film, but if the hook had come earlier, this would be a batter film. While this film does feature a dream Wedding Sequence with Knight's husband. The sequence uses the same music as is used at weddings in the Godfather films. There is some foreshadowing for Coppola. This is a good film, that is just a little short of being a great film. While the parts should have made it, the results do not.

I can't believe Coppola had a career after this - one of the worst endings of any major motion picture ever. Leave it to a clown like Roger Ebore to give this junk four stars. I think Adam Sandler may have based his screen persona on Caan's sweet-but-slow portrayal.

Shirley Knight plays a newly-pregnant suburban housewife who's slow desperate panic has driven her to flee the existence laid out ahead of her. As she takes off in a station wagon, we don't know where she's going and neither does she. She has taken no luggage on her journey but nevertheless brings with her a lot of baggage. Much of her character is revealed during sporadic calls home to her husband who is not so much distraught as he is abusive. These conversations, because of their first-rate execution, are charged with realism. She soon picks up hitch-hiker James Caan, who turns out to be a former football player who's head injury during a game has left him mentally deficient, a large child. Soon after his injury and subsequent surgery, the college he had played for stuffed 1000 dollars into his pocket and washed their hands of him, casting him adrift to fend for himself. With apparently no family to look after him, Knight's character unwittingly becomes his de facto mother. Knight is unwilling to take on motherhood in any form, and is already considering an abortion. In another sense she tries several times to "abort" Caan's character as well. She often abandons him roadside as she becomes overwhelmed by fear and desperation at the grim inescapable realization that she is his only help. And she can't even help herself. Robert Duvall rounds out the cast as an abusive hard-worn motorcycle cop who, as another reviewer has noted, represents the husband Knight has run away from. Acting is first-rate all around, as is Coppola's direction in a film that was definitely a '60's film yet far ahead of its time. Certainly the finest role for Shirley Knight, an actress who definitely proved up to be to the challenge. Anyone who has suffered through one too many Hollywood "feel-good" movies will find welcome relief in The Rain People- bleak but real and utterly fascinating.

After discovering she is pregnant, Long Island housewife Shirley Knight (as Natalie Ravenna) leaves home, in an effort to find herself. Her road trip takes on additional meaning after she picks up brain-damaged football player James Caan (as Jimmy "Killer" Kilgannon), and gets herself picked up by tough cop Robert Duvall (as Gordon); self-admittedly, Ms. Knight is wondering what sex would be like with a man other than her husband. The story does not take full advantage of Knight's obviously fine lead performance... While riding, Mr. Caan explains, "The rain people are people made of rain, and when they cry they disappear altogether because they cry themselves away." He is referring to himself and Knight. On another level, Caan and Mr. Duval are likely what Knight is running away from - a needy baby and an overbearing husband; well, wherever you go, there you are... Francis Ford Coppola's next directorial effort, co-starring Caan and Duval, was much more successful... a little something called "The Godfather". ***** The Rain People (8/27/69) Francis Ford Coppola ~ Shirley Knight, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Marya Zimmet

Francis Ford Coppola's first 'personal' film, completed and released in 1969, was the last movie he made as a mostly unknown, up and coming director before The Godfather, and is in stark contrast to both that film, and the rest of his uneven career. It's ostensibly a road movie involving a disconnected young woman bored with domestic life, and pregnant with a child she isn't sure she wants, fleeing the trappings her dull marriage and hitting the open road in search of freedom. Along the way she befriends a nice man, an ex-footballer player that suffered brain damage from a traumatic head injury, played in unexpectedly subtle fashion by a young James Caan, and decides to 'help' him, despite becoming frustrated with his simple ways. Her efforts to rid of him always fail, either by guilt or chance, and eventually lead her directly into the hands of an emotionally wounded cop(Robert Duvall), who has ideas of his own. The plot is threadbare, but Coppola does a great job at detailing the emotional life of these characters, and uses editing techniques to relay back story that were not at all common in American films of the time. Shots are simple, yet extraordinarily effective, conveying both the moody desolation of the open highway, and the emptiness of American suburban life, infused with a gentle melancholy provided by the film score. Coppola also deserves credit for addressing the issue of domestic discontent from a woman's point of view in the culturally turbulent 60's. Overall, a fairly low-key film that is not what audiences have come to expect from Coppola, but one that is a minor triumph in its own quiet, unassuming way. 7.5/10.

Shirley Knight plays Sara Ravenna, a Long Island housewife who runs away from her marriage when she discovers she is pregnant. She plans to drive into America's heartland and start anew. Along the way she picks up a friendly hitchhiker (James Caan) who calls himself 'Killer.' Soon she discovers that the good natured 'Killer' is actually brain damaged, and by picking him up she has unknowingly taken on a huge responsibility. The two of them drive all the way to Nebraska, where Sara gets Killer a job helping out at a roadside reptile farm. It is here that Sara meets Gordon, a local cop, and soon things go horribly wrong for everyone. This is a powerful drama about people disconnected from society, alienated by the choices they make or by the limits imposed on them by others. Even with such a low budget and a very freewheeling attitude, the film is able to capture everything that needs to be said through these clearly defined characters. Shirley Knight has a complex, diverging role and there are moments of some awe-inspiring acting by her. One of my favorites is when she is on the telephone calling her home to her worried husband the first time. It is such a tense scene on both ends, and in every small gesture and inflection of a word, so much about her is spoken with so little. Then comes in the character of 'Killer' played by James Caan. This character is unlike any I've ever seen him play, and he performs wonderfully. It's one of his best performances as he is very restrained and moving. The way Coppola develops the characters by using short, dream-like flashbacks is very clever, adding a fragmented kind of view onto it all. The quick flashbacks that are graphic and self-contained contrast well with the longer shots in some crucial scenes. Also, because this film was shot on location all over the Eastern U.S., it offers an interesting, authentic look at America in the late 1960's. I haven't seen many other films starring Ms. Knight, I'm only familiar with her more recent work on television, usually playing a nagging mother in law or a dotty old woman. It was great seeing her so young, beautiful, and so wonderfully subtle in this movie. It's also kind of a shame that James Caan went on to be typecast as the 'tough guy' for the rest of his career, because this film evidenced that he is capable of so much more than that.

Newly-pregnant Knight bolts from husband for non-specific reasons which are apparently self-related. On the road, she becomes entangled with Caan, brain-damaged former football star, and Duvall, wacky but abusive cop. The type of movie that could only have been spawned in the 60's. Worth a look for its non-formula plot and for early performances by future stars. Disappointing resolution does not take away too much from rest of flick, which shows an interesting slice of life.

This early Coppola work is overlong and erratic, but it is not devoid of praiseworthy qualities. The cinematography is excellent and the characters are memorable. James Caan is very convincing as the mentally handicapped hitchhiker. Also, because this film was shot on location all over the Eastern U.S., it offers an interesting, authentic look at America in the late 1960's. The title phrase does not have a significant meaning in the overall story, but only comes up during a conversation between the two lead characters (Caan and Shirley Knight). The way Coppola develops the characters by using short, dream-like flashbacks is very clever. In general, this film is not in the same class as Coppola's later work, but it's a solid character-driven story.