The Rainmaker (1956)

The Rainmaker
Directed by Joseph Anthony
Written by N. Richard Nash from his play
1956/USA
Hal Wallis Productions/Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Noah Curry: We don’t believe in rainmakers.
Bill Starbuck: What DO you believe in mistah? Dyin’ cattle?

For me, this starts with Katharine Hepburn cast as a forty-year-old virgin and goes downhill from there.

Lizzie Curry (Hepburn) is smart, capable, and one heck of a good cook.  However, she is “plain” (?!) and speaks her mind so naturally she can’t snatch a man.  This is her one aim in life.  She has a close family that loves her but her brother Noah (Lloyd Bridges) is getting fed up with her spinsterhood.  Her father is trying to set her up with the sheriff (Wendell Corey) but he is commitment-phobic and won’t even come over to taste Lizzie’s homemade limeade.

In the meantime, Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster) a conman who claims he can relieve the current drought for one hundred dollars appears to shake things up.  He gives both Lizzie and her younger brother (the “stupid one”) the courage to stand up for themselves and makes Lizzie feel beautiful at last.

This movie is not actually too bad though Lancaster cuts the line between flamboyance and ham acting perilously close.  It rubs me wrong on a whole lot of different levels, though.  Hepburn is forced to play both below apparent age and grievously against type.  Hepburn may not be conventionally beautiful but there is no way in the world anybody could perceive her as plain.  The story is the epitome of 50’s sexual politics.  Lots of people love it for its romance however.

The Rainmaker was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

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