THE RAIN PEOPLE (1969)

Hollywood’s most implausible runup to a game-changing film saw Francis Ford Coppola go from a series of critical & commercial failures in various genres (poetical fright pic; sentimental education; turgid RoadShow musical; small character piece) to land the great narrative film of its era, THE GODFATHER/’72.  This one, made directly before that career-defining blockbuster, was the character piece.  And though a complete non-starter on release, people seem to hold unreasonable fondness for the ridiculous thing.  A navel-gazing Method Actor 'roadpic'  vehicle (SCARECROW/’73 with Al Pacino & Gene Hackman a better example of the form - https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/11/scarecrow-1973.html), it has Shirley Knight doing the faux-spontaneous hemming & hawing on every bit of action & dialogue.  She seems only marginally ahead of James Caan, the injured/mentally-challenged ex-football college player she picks up while dashing away from an unhappy (abusive?) marriage upon finding out she’s pregnant.  Coppola flashes a bit of technique at us, largely via subliminal flashbacks to barely specified events, but the wistful tone (sub-William Inge, which itself is sub-Tennessee Williams) is basically a cover to hash out themes from Ibsen & Steinbeck (A DOLL’S HOUSE meets OF MICE AND MEN).  Do people really take this stuff seriously?  Caan, meant to be about seven-and-a-half mentally, feels closer to a stage comic in slow-think mode, conveniently so.  (Think Crazy Guggenheim from the old Jackie Gleason show . . .  but without the sentimental Irish ballad.)  Near the end, Robert Duvall shows up for a riveting turn featuring some unearned melodrama (sex, shooting, backstory monologue, near rape), completing the package with a dose of sensitive rubbish.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Steven Spielberg’s apprenticeship was in tv, but his first mainstream feature, which falls into the same dramatic ballpark (sensitive roadpic with a couple on the move), is infinitely superior; something of a minor masterpiece if equally unseen, THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS/’74.  Damn if it also didn’t lead directly to his career breakthru.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-sugarland-express-1956.html