The Rainmaker (1956)

 

Picture: B     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Film: B

 

 

By far one of the strangest films to star Katherine Hepburn or Burt Lancaster is the 1956 film The Rainmaker, which has no connection whatsoever to the John Grisham book-turned-film by director Francis Coppola from 1997 starring Danny DeVito and Matt Damon.  The 1956 film is just odd, yet interesting and perhaps worth a look.

 

The plot itself sets up well as Katherine Hepburn plays the plainest girl in the world and therein lies her problems to life.  She just can’t seem to attract any attention, which is partly believable with her superb acting.  Everything seems to set up very well and everything also changes when this midwestern town hits a drought, which then leads to the love interest of Burt Lancaster who may or may not be “The Rainmaker” that is much needed for the survival of this town. 

 

Shot in the large frame VistaVision format, the film looks stunning and is anamorphically enhanced for this 1.85 X 1 transfer from Paramount.  This is another one of their top-notch jobs making this Technicolor production really glow and shine.  This might be perhaps a good enough reason to at least check the film out once.  There is no doubt that the film never looked this good on any format for home video up until this point.  Colors are very well balanced a bit of grain on the print giving it a nice film-like quality.  A bit of dirt and debris now and again, but the fidelity is good all around.  Consistency is also very tight with the print and the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is no match for such a stunning picture.  It would have been nice to see this film slightly boosted for a 5.1 mix or even stereo, especially since the score is by none other than Alex North.

 

Charles Lang’s camerawork is extraordinary, his credits are lined with huge films ranging from The Magnificent Seven, the underseen One Eyed Jacks with Marlon Brando, Charade (one of the finest films of the 1960’s, and Last Train From Gun Hill, which was another VistaVision shot film that was reviewed on this site as well.  

 

No extras for the film, which is disappointing, but that’s become common for these films from Paramount.  Director Anthony Joseph also did another fine film called The Matchmaker for Paramount in VistaVision, which is reviewed elsewhere on this site.

 

 

-   Nate Goss