The Rainmaker

I saw this TV production of the classic American play 2 or 3 years after it was made and was struck by one major, inescapable, inexcusable flaw: it contained the single worst piece of casting I had ever seen. Tuesday Weld is simply incapable of playing a spinster. There isn't enough make-up in Hollywood to make that beauty unattractive. The subtle, hidden qualities of feminine beauty that Lizzie is meant to discover slowly as the play progresses are all flagrant and obvious in Weld from the git-go. Her polish and confidence cannot be concealed or denied at any time on any level thus rendering her character unbelievable. Katherine Hepburn had a bony enough face and an odd enough personality to pull it off in the movie version. Weld can't. As a result the plot seemed ludicrous, the theme, the message lost. A sad waste of talent and performances.

Every once in a while, you catch a gem. I seldom watch TV but happen to catch this performance of Nash's The Rainmaker. The old movie with Katie Hepburn, Cameron Prudhomme, Burt Lancaster, Lloyd Bridges, Wendell Corey and Earl Holliman is a classic. So, I was interested to see how Lonnie Chapman, Tuesday Weld, John Cromwell and the everloving Tommy Lee Jones would do. It was great. Not a weak moment and lots of energy. Tommy Lee had this stick he twirled which together with his gift for banter made him perfect as Starbuck, the conman rainmaker. I especially loved his final scene where he struts in, give his stick a spin and asks for his $100.00. A fine performance of a great play by a strong cast. Lonnie Chapman, a solid actor cast in bit parts from his debut in the Sinatra/Doris Day musical and memorable as the irate father in The Reivers turns in a solid performance as does the consistent Cromwell in one of his pre-Babe roles. William Katt as the hormone-struck younger brother, chaffing under his older brother's control is fine too, as is Tuesday Weld, whom we see little of since her teenie bopper days as a cutie-pie. All in all, a great piece of entertainment.

This is one of the biggest dreams of my life - seeing Tommy Lee Jones on the theater stage. I used to try to imagine what he was like when he worked in the theater. But it was useless to make it up - Tommy is always so different! On stage, he is so cool! He is incendiary! He is brilliantly! He's sparkling! He is impressive! He is so funny! He is groovy! And he takes incredible pleasure in what he does! At the same time, none of the actors who worked with him in this production was in the shadows - each was strong, bright and very believable! Great performance! I really liked it!

John Frankenheimer takes a few weeks off to return to what he obviously loves most: adaptations of stage plays. Like The Iceman Cometh, this is really just Frankenheimer finding interesting places to put his camera while professional, accomplished actors perform well in a respected play. We do get shots of a crowd supposedly watching the performance, but, of course, they were filmed separately (the crowd wasn't watching the back of the cameraman for two hours). I can kind of see why the IMDB doesn't have John Frankenheimer listed as directed (despite, you know, the on-screen credit) since this really is the N. Richard Nash show.

It's the story of the Curry family. The patriarch, H. C. (Lonny Chapman), has ceded operational control of the family farm to his eldest son, Noah (James Cromwell). His younger son, Jim (William Katt), is becoming obsessed with a never seen girl in town. His daughter, Lizzie (Tuesday Weld), has just come back from a trip to another town in an effort to find her a suitor amongst a family of boys that are almost like family, an effort that failed miserably. All at the same time, the farm is in the middle of a drought with no end in sight. The Curry family ends up with two main thrusts of action. The first is to get Lizzie set up with the so-called widower (who is actually divorced but ashamed of it), File (Taylor Lacher), deputy to the sheriff. The other is interactions with Bill Starbuck (Tommy Lee Jones), a traveling rainmaker who promises rain for $100.

So, being a stage play, especially one where no adaptation to cinema has happened besides Frankenheimer's choice of camera angles, the film is hidebound to its stage roots, taking place in three rooms from one act to the next. It's a small story that moves back and forth from one concern to the next with alacrity, never losing sight of what else is going on, and eventually intertwining the stories quite expertly by the end.

The heart of the film is Lizzie, of course. Everything ends up revolving around the mousy woman, aging up and perhaps about to become an old maid (as Noah accuses her of becoming), forcing herself to open up to the possibility of getting married. First, it's to the idea of marrying File, something she slowly works herself up to in preparing for a dinner with him and the whole Curry family. However when he doesn't show up, she's already open to the idea of a man, and in walks fast talking Starbuck. She outright calls him a conman with his promises of rain, an accusation that almost drives him out of the house and their lives completely. However, H. C. is so desperate and has a story of a friend who gave $50 to a conman and had his cough fixed for life anyway, and he convinces Starbuck to stay by just paying him, over Noah's objections.

Lizzie's path from File to Starbuck and back is well-written and Tuesday Weld carries it with professional heft. The star is really Jones, though, playing the conman to the hilt with slick charm and likeability without ever losing sight of the fact that Starbuck is a man who promises rain and could never deliver it. That the film ends with an ironic success for him after a long series of self-reflection from all the characters, including Starbuck himself, feels like just a joke ending, one to give the audience something a nice feeling at the end of a more serious look at characters growing through a moment of intense drama.

So, it's pretty good. The acting is very good. The character writing is solid and leads to a specific place. The intertwining of separate plot elements is solid. Frankenheimer keeps the frame interesting throughout. This is obviously something Frankenheimer did to keep sane as he was selling his creative soul to studios just to get work on the most derivative of films they would give him to make. It was also something of a return to his roots when he made live drama for television. There was never going to be a large market for this kind of thing, one reason this was a made-for-television production and not a theatrical release, and the genre schlock he was putting out otherwise was not hugely popular at the box office. So, Frankenheimer seemed stuck. I'm glad he was able to find time and resources to do this sort of thing when he could, because otherwise I think he might have gone insane.

I love this play and had seen several different stage and film versions, but never quite understood why Lizzie struggled so desperately with the choice of whether to run away with a sleazy con man, likable or not Or stay and marry a wonderful man who obviously adored her, had a good job and could give her a good life -- that is, until I saw Tommy Lee Jones play the part! I wanted to run away with him, too! He mastered that role as no one else has! I agree that Tuesday Weld was not the best choice for Lizzie, but watching Mr. Jones BE the Rainmaker is worth it! Acting students take note!! Tommy Lee Jones made all the same words Burt Lancaster said come out different. Perhaps the kudos go to the director as well, but Finally I found a Starbuck I want to run away with!