''The Rain People'' is a 1969 American film written and directed by

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...

, starring Shirley Knight, James Caan and Robert Duvall. Coppola's friend and fellow director

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the '' Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as c ...

worked as an aide on this film, and made a short 1968 documentary titled ''

Filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

'' about the making of the film. The film also won the

Golden Shell The Golden Shell ( es, Concha de Oro; eu, Urrezko Maskorra) is the highest prize given to a competing film at the San Sebastián Film Festival. It was introduced in 1957. In 1953 and 1954, the highest prize had been called the Gran Premio. In 19 ...

at the 1969 San Sebastian Film Festival. The film received mixed reviews, but modern reception is more often positive. The current DVD release from Warner Archive appears to be from a 16mm print.

Plot

Natalie Ravenna leaves her husband sleeping at home and sets off on a road trip in a family station wagon. She visits her parents who are quite upset with her. At a gas station, Natalie makes a collect phone call to her husband and tells him she's pregnant. He is thrilled with the news, but she tells him that she's not ready to come back and needs time away from him. She gives a ride to a strapping young man, Killer, who had been a college football star but had sustained a serious head injury and was given one thousand dollars to leave the school. On their first night together, in Natalie’s motel room, she orders Killer around and makes him show her his muscular body. She tells him she is pregnant and had given him the ride to have a one-night affair with him, but then she sends him to his own room. Natalie drives Killer to the home of a one-time girlfriend of his whose father had once promised him a job, but that family wants nothing to do with him and Natalie takes him with her when she drives away. While they travel west she twice comes close to finding him work and a place to stay, only to decide that Killer would be taken advantage of. She also twice leaves him at the side of the road, only to change her mind. During a subsequent collect call from a payphone days later her husband pleads with her to return home, saying he will do anything to make her happy. Killer angers her by destroying the phone cord, but they continue travelling together. Natalie is stopped by a motorcycle highway patrolman, Gordon, and receives a speeding ticket. Gordon invites her back to his trailer, and she agrees. He proves to be an unstable widower and father who mistreats his young daughter. After sending her outside so he and Natalie can have sex, he reveals the death of his wife to Natalie. Meanwhile, his daughter and Killer talk and wander the trailer park together. When Natalie tries to leave, Gordon attempts to force her to stay and prepares to rape her. Killer tries to stop Gordon by beating him, which Natalie tries and fails to stop. Gordon's daughter shoots Killer dead, leaving Natalie holding his body, sobbing, as park residents arrive and watch.

Cast

* Shirley Knight as Natalie Ravenna * James Caan as Jimmy "Killer" Kilgannon * Robert Duvall as Gordon * Marya Zimmet as Rosalie * Tom Aldredge as Mr. Alfred * Laura Crews as Ellen * Andrew Duncan as Artie * Margaret Fairchild as Marion * Sally Gracie as Beth * Alan Manson as Lou * Robert Modica as Vinny Ravenna * Rain Manuel lavitoria

Production

At the time, Duvall and Caan lived with each other and were doing a few films together. Later, they and Coppola teamed for the film ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...

''. The film features about 2-minutes and 44 seconds of footage filmed on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee amid the city's annual Armed Forces Parade. A majority of the clips were shot near the main intersection of what is today Martin Luther King Boulevard and Market Street.

Reception

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

'' gave the film four stars out of four and compared Natalie Ravenna's quest to that of the

Peter Fonda Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fond ...

character in ''

Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...

'', and called them both "lineal descendants of the most typical American searcher of them all,

Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884). He is 12 ...

." He concluded: "It's difficult to say whether his film is successful or not. That's the beautiful thing about a lot of the new, experimental American directors. They'd rather do interesting things and make provocative observations than try to outflank

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

on his way to the Great American Movie." According to ''

TVGuide.com TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program listings information as well as entertainment and television-related news. The company sold its print magazine division, TV Guide Magazine LLC, in 2008. Corporate ...

'': "This odd odyssey was not a hit, even though over the years it has been regarded as one of Coppola's more personal pictures and has attained a limited following." Margarita Landazuri writes on ''

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of ...

'': "It has acquired a cult status as an early feminist film for its provocative treatment of a woman seeking her own identity." The work currently has an 82% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

. In 2015, David Canfield named ''The Rain People'' as one of Coppola's five best films, calling it "hypnotic".

References

External links