THE RAIN PEOPLE (1969
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 102 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Shirley Knight, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Robert Modica, Tom Aldredge
After he worked for Roger Corman and before he made his Hollywood breakthrough with The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola helmed this tale of late-1960s Long Island housewife Natalie Ravenna (Shirley Knight, Grandma's Boy) who discovers that she is pregnant, and one morning wakes up in a bit of existential crisis - is this what she wants? To be a wife and mother, with the prognosis of motherhood on the horizon she begins to question what she wants from life. To that end she leaves a concisely ambiguous note for her husband Vinny (Robert Modica, Love Story) and hits the road in her station wagon in search of personal freedom and answers. Unsure of what she wants or even where she's going, besides heading West, she hits the road, occasionally calling her husband collect from payphones to sort of check in with him, with the increasingly irate husband seemingly at his rope's end, unable to comprehend what he has done or why his wife has left him.
While on the road she hesitantly picks up a hitchhiker named Jimmy "Killer" Kilgannon (James Caan, Thief), a former college football player who sustained a traumatic brain-injury during agame, who's carrying around $1,000 cash. He turns out to be a nice obedient young man who makes for a solid companion on most of her journey. Later she starts to realize that the brain-injured Killer has no one left to turn to, his mother is dead, and his prospects are low if left to his own devices, but she realizes that she does not want to be the one to take responsibility for him, so she drops him off at a roadside animal attraction, with the unscrupulous Mr. Alfred (Tom Aldredge, Full Moon High), who agrees to take him in as a laborer, but who will also more than likely steal his money and take advantage of the simple-minded guy. Leaving him behind she is soon pulled over for speeding by motorcycle highway patrolman Gordon (Robert Duvall, The Godfather), who asks her out on date, and they end up back at his mobile home where he tells her the tale of how his former wife died in a house fire, and tries to bed her while his difficult daughter Rosalie (Marya Zimmet) makes that a difficult proposition, Natalie's existential road trip converges at the trailer park with tragic results, with no real resolution having been achieved.
The melancholy nature of the film brought to mind the Pail newman directed Rachel, Rachel (1968) a little bit, the film is down-turned and largely undefined, but it was well-shot and the performances are strong but it just feels thin and underdeveloped. That's not to say that it doesn't occasionally engage, it certainly does, I particularly found a hotel room game of "Simon Says" she plays with Killer to be quite interesting, but I was never fully engaged by it. That said, I appreciate the visuals and performances, and the flashback inserts used to convey past events in the lives of the three main characters, but while I found this to be an interesting early curio from from Coppola it certainly is not essential to anyone but the most ardent of the director's filmography.
Audio/Video: The Rain People (1969) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Warner Archive in 1080p HD frame din the original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio. The image is clean and free of blemish, maintaining filmic grain levels with a soft, slightly gauzy appearance due to the cinematography from William Butler (The Return of Count Yorga), and it look quite nice. Black levels are a tad on the milky side, which looks to also be source related and no fault of the fine transfer. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The audio is clean sounding and free of age-related hiss or distortion, dialogue is strong and the score from Ronald Stein (Attack of the 50 ft. Woman) sounds very nice.
Oddly, no extras for this release, which is a bit of a surprise considering it's coming from Coppola - someone has something to say about this film, surely. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- None
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