The Rainmaker (1956)

Katharine Hepburn had a day in Summer Under the Stars last August, which gave me the chance to record one of her movies I hadn't blogged about before, The Rainmaker. Recently, I finally got around to watching it.

Although Hepburn is one of the stars, it's the other one that we see first. That would be Burt Lancaster, playing "Tornado" Bill. Bill is one of those itinerant carnival con-artist types, going around places in the Great Plains around 1930 selling what he claims is a device that will stop tornadoes from destroying the local small towns where he stops. (The movie doesn't specify when it's set, although Bill has a horse-drawn cart while several characters have cars, with the newest according to IMDb being a 1930 model.) Bill has also developed a fairly obvious reputation as a con artist, and somebody in town recognizes him, forcing him to beat a hasty retreat. (Amazingly, the police don't impound his cart.)

Cut to a town in the west half of the Kansas prairie where the welcome sign has been edited to say it used to be a bustling place until the drought came. They're holding a charity dance to raise money for the farmers affected by the drought; outside the building is the car of one Snookie Maguire (Yvonne Lime), who is apparently from a wealthy family if she can afford such a car. She's pursued by young Jim Curry (Earl Holliman), youngest kid in a family that has a farmhouse just outside of town, with older brother Noah (Lloyd Bridges), father H.C. (Cameron Prud'homme), and much older sister Lizzie (that's Katharine Hepburn, as if you couldn't tell).

Lizzie isn't home when we first meet the family. That's becaue they sent her away to visit relatives. Of course, the real reason was the hope that perhaps one of the cousins, or perhaps somebody in their town, would take a liking to Lizzie and ask her to marry him. She's getting up there in years (Hepburn was 49 when she made the movie, although I don't think Lizzie was supposed to be quite that old), and worried about becoming a spinster. And what is the rest of the family going to do with her if she does become a spinster aunt?

Meanwhile, Dad is also thinking that perhaps Lizzie could be married off to sheriff's deputy File (Wendell Corey), who is at first thought to be a widow although he is in fact a divorcé. It's one of the few times in the movies that Wendell Corey would actually be the right romantic partner for the lead actress, although it does seem clear that this would be a marriage of convenience at first and the two would have to learn to love each other. But Lizzie and File both seem like the sort of people who could ultimately learn that. Noah, however, is nasty enough that he suggests to Dad that nobody would ever marry Lizzie.

Enter Bill, now calling himself Bill Starbuck. Seeing that this town is suffering through a drought, he styles himself as a rainmaker, whose devices can bring rain if only you follow his convoluted method that he really just made up on the spot. For some inexplicable reason, Lizzie falls in love with the excitement that Starbuck brings -- she seems smart enough that she should see right through Starbuck's con-artist bluster. Maybe it's just that she's so desparate. Starbuck doesn't dislike Lizzie at all; in fact he seems to like someone so smart. But he's also one of those people who just can't settle down, and you know Lizzie wouldn't really belong with him. Never mind that the law in other states wants to find and prosecute Starbuck.

I had some big problems with The Rainmaker, and in reading the IMDb reviews, I see that the issues I had are ones I'm not alone in having. One is that Hepburn is miscast, as she's clearly too old to be a sibling to Jim (Hepburn was 21 years older than Holliman and six older than Bridges). Then there's the way Starbuck is written. He's just so obnoxiously over the top in his cons that I wanted to see him get smacked. It works for some other roles, but not here.

The Rainmaker was based on a stage play, and that's extremely obvious from the direction that we get here. It also doesn't help that the outdoor scenes look to have been don on a soundstage. Maybe some of the town square scenes were done on the back lot, but that's about it. The staginess doesn't much help the movie. Perhaps the script would work better on the stage. That having been said, the actors all try their darndest with the material, and the color cinematography is nice for the soundstage.

So some people might like The Rainmaker, but I have to admit that if I were looking to introduce people to any of the actors in the movie, this isn't the film I'd pick.