• For Francis Ford Coppola this is still not a great film, (the earliest in the archives)- but he is no longer working with Roger Corman and Finian’s Rainbow (1968) is in his rearview so this is his most personal film to date. The bulk of Roger Ebert’s four-star praise for it in 1969 is about the freshness of Coppola’s voice. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-rain-people-1969
  • Coppola, cast and crew (including Walter Murch and a young George Lucas a production associate) traveled around the country to make the film.
  • There is a clear care for composition and eye for visuals in the first shot as Coppola reflected the setting off a puddle (above).
  • Shirley Knight (two Oscar nominations under her belt in 1969 already) plays Natalie. This is mainly her story. She is a Long Island housewife who has just found out she is pregnant. Coppola provides small glimpses into her relationship through a series of pay phone conversations back home to her furious husband Vinny. There is a brilliant line of dialogue from Knight’s Natalie “I used to wake up in the morning and it was my day. And now it belongs to you”.
  • Natalie picks up a hitchhiker named Kilgannon. He is an injured ex-football star played by James Caan. They are two people that spend their life taking orders from others.
  • Coppola’s talent behind the camera is evident. He often shoots in long takes (one slowly zooming in on Knight in the phone booth—another with Caan and Knight dancing and talking in their hotel room). Coppola also uses this Resnais Hiroshima Mon Amour-like cutaway flashbacks as a cinematic tool. This is the same year John Schlesinger brought these to Midnight Cowboy as well. Coppola gives us insight into Natalie’s domestic life, Kilgannon’s football history, and Coppola even gives us a similar sequence into the fire that destroyed Gordon’s life (Robert Duvall) even though this character is not in the first hour plus of the film. These work wonderfully. But there are one-off cinematic experiments in The Rain People that do not work- like Coppola choosing to freeze on Knight when she is on the phone and then dissolving. This is done just once- a miss.
  • The pairing of Coppola, Caan and Duvall just a few years before The Godfather of course.
  • Caan has a talent for playing characters with lower intelligence.
  • Easy Rider is another lower budget road trip movie in 1969. In The Rain People these are not lovers on the run and they do not break the law so they are not Bonnie and Clyde (referenced in the film). If the film has a little in common with both superior late 1960s efforts, it also has a little in common with Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”- especially in the tragic climax.
  • Admirably aimless and free of traditional cliches.
  • A great shot of Shirley in shadows at the 91-minute mark in Duvall’s character’s trailer
  • Recommend but not terribly close to the top 10 of 1969. This is the film Coppola made directly before he made The Godfather and went on that great run of his during the 1970s. Although I see talent here in The Rain People– I do not see that level of talent.