The Rainmaker (1956): Dress Rehearsal for Elmer Gantry?

 

THE RAINMAKER (1956)

Directed by Joseph Anthony

Paramount, 121 minutes, Not-rated

★★★

 

 

The Rainmaker was remade twice and the 1997 Francis Ford Coppola film of that name has nothing to do with this one. The 1956 film in question could be considered Burt Lancaster’s dress rehearsal for Elmer Gantry.

 

The film’s action takes place in Kansas during the Great Depression. Forget soup lines and unemployment; if you paid attention to The Wizard of Oz  (or your history instructors!) you know that a crippling drought turned farmland into the Dust Bowl. That’s one of the problems facing the Curry family headed by H.C. (Cameron Prud’Homme), a widower with two sons–Noah (Lloyd Bridges) and Jim (Earl Holliman)– and daughter Lizzie (Katharine Hepburn). Lizzie is the other problem. Although she’s sort of attracted to Howard Thomas (Wallace Ford), the local sheriff, he has the vocal skills of a mime, and other prospects have been even less promising. Middle-aged, reticent, bookish, and independent spell “old maid” in an age in which women were expected to marry. Lizzie thinks she’s plain-looking, another blow to her already low self-esteem.

 

Meanwhile, we see Bill Starbuck (Lancaster) trying to sell lightning rods to gullible farmers from the back of his carny-like wagon, though they  look like a digeridoo crossed with a voodoo staff. It’s a good day when he can hightail it out of town ahead of law enforcement. He makes his way to the Curry farm after a chance encounter with Lizzie. She and her family recognize him as a conman even before Howard and his deputy warn them there’s a huckster in the area. Starbuck doesn’t even try to deny the charge, but times are desperate and H.C. and Lizzie are intrigued by his offer to make it rain. If it does, they pay him; if it doesn’t, he’ll disappear.

 

Moby Dick readers will recognize the name Starbuck. In Melville’s novel Starbuck was a serious Quaker with deep respect for the plans of the Almighty and warns others to pay attention to God’s will. He was also cautious and quiet, something Bill Starbuck is not. Bill’s the sort who’d try to sell paint to cover vinyl siding, but he also quotes Scripture, exudes religious-like passion, and has rogue-like charm. Do you suspect that he and Lizzie will have a fling? Wouldn’t that be Lizzie’s business? H. C. thinks so, but her brothers play good cop/bad cop roles on that question. And don’t be so sure you know what their relationship will be.

 

The Rainmaker is played for laughs in a broad almost sit-com way that occasionally goes over the top. It was made 67 years ago and some of those situations and many of the social values now seem prehistoric. Hepburn was 49 in 1956, but anyone who has seen a picture of her in full bloom would find it hard to imagine that, in the film’s logic, she was always too plain-looking to attract a husband. Of course, we must also remember that woman-as-homemaker was a dominant value of both the 1930s and the 1950s. If it helps, men’s roles were often stereotypical as well. Those who worked with their hands weren’t expected to be Einsteins or worry about feelings–their own or those of anyone else.

 

What makes The Rainmaker interesting to watch in 2023 is the acting. Hepburn plays against what was by then her type: wisecracking, cosmopolitan, and tough, even if the script called for her to be clumsy or fall in love. That’s why her attempts to show deference or act the role of the perfect homemaker are funny in The Rainmaker. Lancaster is at his bombastic best as Starbuck. You can imagine how he must have been totally pumped to be offered the role of Gantry four years later. Today we find his performance histrionic, but it was in keeping with method acting techniques of his day. You don’t need to know a thing about that, though; you could just revel in the unbridled delight of watching him chew scenery like chicken wings and celery sticks.

 

I do wish the secondary characters had been as well developed as those of Lizzie and Starbuck. Several talented actors–Bridges and Ford especially–are reduced to cardboard cutouts and there’s a reason you won’t recognize the names of a few of the background characters. It’s all in good fun though. Wedding bells? Rain? Not sayin’.

 

Rob Weir