Baby the Rain Must Fall

Summary

“Your daddy’s written some beautiful songs. And if he can just get to Nashville or Hollywood to sell them, it might make him famous.”

Twilight Time continues its steady stream of noteworthy films from yesteryear with their release of the Robert Mulligan drama Baby the Rain Must Fall. This film was adapted by Horton Foote from his play The Traveling Lady. This was the second collaboration between Mulligan and Foote after their classic collaboration on To Kill a Mockingbird. I sat down last night to check it out.

A woman named Georgette (Lee Remick) and her infant daughter Margaret Rose ride a bus from Tyler, Texas into the small town of Columbus, Texas. Margaret Rose has not met her father since being born. The girl’s father is a rockabilly singer named Henry Thomas (Steve McQueen) that recently got out of prison for stabbing a man in a fight. Arriving in town, the sheriff takes Georgette and Margaret Rose to the house of Henry’s employers, the Tillman’s. Reunited with his family, Henry tells Georgette he plans to make everything up to her. At the same time, the arrival of his family throws a kink into his plans to go to Nashville or California to try to sell his music. Georgette is willing to get a job to help send Henry to California to make his fortune. Henry has a very complicated relationship with Mrs. Kiever who raised him from an orphan. A judge had given Henry to Mrs. Kiever when he was an orphan. Unfortunately, Mrs. Kiever abused him both mentally and physically. Henry seems to be incapable of escaping from the violent cycle that was caused by his childhood abuse. Mrs. Kiever, and the judge, want Henry to go to night school and obey the terms of his parole. Henry wants to play in the band and become a star, even though he keeps getting into fights at his gigs.

Serious dramas are a hard lot to recommend to others. Instead of saying, “hey, I think you will enjoy this,” maybe we should say, “hey, I think you should endure this.” Baby the Rain Must Fall is a serious drama. It makes no allusion of trying to make the lives of its small-time characters more bearable or less heartbreaking. The film does not try to lead the audience to believe that things will be alright for everybody involved. In reading Julie Kirgo’s notes on the film, she mentions that the film was unfairly criticized for “going nowhere.” I side with her opinion that this criticism was absolutely unfair. Things happen in the film, they just don’t move in a positive direction. 

The film should have actually been given applause for addressing an issue so rarely explored on film – child abuse and its aftermath. It does this sensitively and without the slightest hint of exploitation. That said, the film is not perfect. The film is based on a play and for a little while it avoids feeling like one, but by the second act it should be obvious to the viewer. Plays that are turned into films typically suffer from the limitations of the other art form and to succeed as a film typically need to be changed to move more briskly. The best example of a play turned into a a great entertainment would be Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. Mamet knew that in order to make his plays work as movies he had to move the camera (which he teaches in his excellent book On Directing Film.) Where this film fails is in addressing the issue of pacing. The long static shots that are filled with beauty are also not cut down to speed up the film. The result is that the film feels like you are slowly being pulled towards a bad finish.

The biggest (and most obvious) misstep of the film is that the singing voice used for the character of Henry Thomas does not match up with Steve McQueen’s voice at all. The effect is that these scenes disrupt the film instead of enhancing it. It is a shame, because it is pretty obvious that McQueen poured himself into the role with aplomb and given the right singer to match his pitch, these scenes could have really been great.

The cinematography in the film by the great Ernest Lazslo is beyond reproach. The film’s striking black and white visual style reminded me a lot of the visual style of Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. The direction of Robert Mulligan is also par excellence. The two leads – Steve McQueen and Lee Remick – are both heartbreakingly real. It is an absolute shame that McQueen didn’t get any credit for his performance due to some bad lipsyncing. The music in the film by Elmer Bernstein is also very enjoyable.

Overall – this is a well done, well shot, well acted, well written movie that you may not want to revisit any time soon. I am glad that I watched it, but its dreariness may turn off some viewers.

Video

Sony have provided a great-looking new transfer in 1080p with an MPEG-4 AVC encoding and 1.85:1 aspect ratio from the vaults at Columbia. Sony are the best in the business in my opinion, and this is another great example of how much pride they take in their work. Fine detail is exceptional. Black, gray, and white interact seamlessly under Sony’s careful quality control process. The cinematography by Ernest Lazslo is really well thought out and beautifully choreographed. Fans of the film should be ecstatic that it fell into Sony’s possession.

Audio

Twilight Time have provided a DTS-HD MA 1.0 track. It has excellent fidelity to the original elements. This is a great sounding track thanks to the cleverly composed score by Elmer Bernstein. All of this sounds great. The dialogue is clear and I did not notice any noticeable hiccups in the audio. Good stuff. 

Supplements

Original Theatrical Trailer

Overall scores

Video – 4.5/5 

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – .5/5

Overall – 4/5

Baby the Rain Must Fall is a good slice-of-life drama that explores the subject of child abuse in a sensitive and intelligent way. The film is pretty slow, but the performances, direction, and cinematography will hold the interest of any film student. As mentioned in my review, the film is such a downer that it forfeits some replay value and may turn off viewers that prefer their films to have uplifting notions. This is a drama in the truest sense and therefore will not appeal to everyone, but I was glad that I watched it. The video and audio transfer that Twilight Time have provided are both exemplary.