BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL: Blu-ray (Columbia, 1965) Twilight Time

I have often suspected there are two kinds of rebel; the undiluted ‘hell cat’ variety, born to its kick-ass mantle by an inbred streak of wickedness and/or bitter railing against the world, and, the other kind, who merely adopt the patina of its ‘bad ass’ quality, either because they believe it is expected of them and/or, under circumstances it becomes a survivalist’s shield against some genuine harsh reality - the outward ‘toughness’, judged as appealing by the naïve, who otherwise would not ascribe to its principles and assume the position. I have always found actor, Steve McQueen to be of this latter ilk; McQueen, who evolved his persona as ‘the king of cool’ to fortify against a notorious childhood; unloved by his alcoholic mother, cruelly beaten by the man she would later marry, and quietly suffering from both dyslexia and partial deafness in one ear from an infection – McQueen’s rise to prominence as a Hollywood ‘bad boy’ – if, with the proverbial heart of gold, and, in an era where counterculture anti-heroes were all the rage - had much to do with his life-long determination to overshadow this awkward shame with fame. So, McQueen’s early life, dotted with stints in a brothel; also, as a roughneck, lumberjack and carnival barker – helped to shape the tough guy image at an early age. This however, does not mitigate the fact that Steve McQueen was, in fact, a very sensitive individual. That McQueen, in the latter act of his life, became slavishly devoted to maintaining his alter-ego, reinforced by the roles Hollywood perpetually cast him in, and, regrettably bought into his own PR, much to the detriment of his own happiness, is indeed one of the great tragedies to have survived and rivaled his reputation ever since as an undeniably fabulous actor who could also be a royal pain in the ass on the set.  And, in director, Robert Mulligan’s Baby, the Rain Must Fall (1965) we can clearly see the beginnings of this duality McQueen would struggle with for the rest of his days, flashes of the honest and humble loner, sheathed with an outer layer of the recalcitrant rebel.

Based on Horton Foote’s The Traveling Lady, Baby, the Rain Must Fall reveals hard truths about the genuine n’er-do-well; also, the tragedy to befall any woman who falls hard for this sort of sexy-as-hell ‘bad boy’. McQueen’s Henry Thomas – a newly paroled convict with a daydream to become a rockabilly icon a la Elvis Presley – can no more lend his restless wanderer’s heart to moral fidelity in a lasting relationship than he is able to find even momentary solace, accepting life, imperfect, impractically harsh, and, generally speaking, out to get him, will win the race, despite his stubborn best efforts to beat back its assault and claim even a momentary victory against it.  And Henry, who has never even told the members in this small close-knit community, to include his bitter and dying stepmother, Kate Dawson (Georgia Simmons), boyhood friend, Deputy Sheriff Slim (Don Murray), compassionate Judge Ewing (Paul Fix), stern and judgmental employer, Ms. Tillman (Carol Veazie) and her infinitely more empathetic husband (Charles Watts) that somewhere along his travels, and long before his stint in the big house, he managed to bed, wed and impregnate on the sly, Georgette (the luminous Lee Remick), since to have born him an adorable little girl, Margaret Rose (Kimberly Block).  Henry wants success, or rather, to be his own man without a moment’s care afforded anything or anyone beyond his own pleasure. Like all truly bad ‘bad’ boys, this pursuit of happiness at everyone else’s expense will come at a terrible price; momentarily clouded by cheap beer, womanizing at will, and basically, indulging a litany of self-destructive behaviors to feed the ego and disseminate its warped sense of perspective and purpose upon the rest of the world.

Problem: even bad boys possess a soul – and Henry’s proves his Achilles’ Heel. He is, after all, sheepishly ashamed to have cast aside Georgette, never dreaming she would one day follow him home in search of the quiet life as wife and mother. And furthermore, Henry has taken a genuine shine to their daughter, who he realizes, even if he cannot articulate such emotions, he has somehow already failed as an absentee parent, incapable of making up for this lost time. Baby, the Rain Must Fall delivers its hard-hitting message of social humiliation and life-long angry regret with an uncompromising and frank chronicle of events, destined to send Henry Thomas right back to the pen; the absolute last place he wants to go. The trick here is that Horton Foote’s screenplay is sympathetic to both Henry and Georgette, although decidedly, for very different reasons. And McQueen, with those expressive and penetrating eyes of his, and wiry ‘anything might happen’ frame, poured into tight-fitting/weather-beaten Demin, paints a portrait of the lanky loner as ‘tough guy’ extraordinaire, without a moral compass at the center or even a cause beyond his own selfish whimsy to stabilize his impossibly amoral angst. This would cripple Henry, if only he could let his inbred rage against Kate Dawson slip just a little, defying her edict he should attend night school and learn a trade. Henry doesn’t want a job. He wants fame – also, money. And, he wants it now. When he plays his guitar at the local watering hole, he draws a crowd of admirers; slack-jawed yokels, soaking their heads in a pint, or, even more insidiously sycophantic females, offering themselves as mere distractions to his aspirations.

Taking full advantage of the remote Texas locales, Baby, the Rain Must Fall was shot in and around Columbus, Bay City, Wharton and Lockhart – although the scene where Georgette takes a job as a car hop at a diner to supplement Henry’s promise as a professional recording artist was actually shot much later, at the ‘31 Flavors’ ice cream store in Tarzana, California – the incredibly death-like arid heat and sun-burnt starkness herein perfectly complements Henry’s growing isolation and feelings of entrapment that now runs counter-intuitive to his daydreams. Steve McQueen and Lee Remick are such very fine actors – chameleons, actually – we can almost believe each grew up in a desert-parched backwater like this one. Their ability to convince us, Southern drawl and all, only amplifies the calamity of their alter-ego’s love story.  The one impossible stretch here is witnessing McQueen’s Henry at the Wagon Wheel bar, lip-syncing to Billy Strange’s richer vocals.  Why no attempt was even made to discover a male vocalist who could assimilate McQueen’s vocal patterns more succinctly is, frankly, beyond me. Interestingly, the Elmer Bernstein/Ernie Sheldon title song – Baby, the Rain Must Fall (later to be transformed into a #2 chart-topper by Glenn Yarbrough, after departing ‘The Limelighters’ for his solo career) is barely heard in this movie (more on this in a moment), and, even then, also sung by Strange as the camera departs the honky-tonk where Henry has just had his brief fifteen minutes of glory, belting out another tune, ‘Baby, Better Treat Me Right’. Keen eyes will detect a very young Glen Campbell and Hal Blaine playing back-up in Henry’s band. Depending on the source consulted Yarbrough’s title track is either heard under the main titles or replaced by a jazzy orchestral rendition. Aside: on this Blu-ray release, we get the instrumental version – not Yarbrough’s vocals.

Baby, the Rain Must Fall ought never to have become a movie, as its brief run on Broadway – it barely played 30 days between Oct. and Nov. 1954 – practically guaranteed its obsolescence from the public consciousness. If the picture had been made in the fifties, its stature would likely not have endured these many years. Certainly, it could not have been cast with either McQueen or Remick – neither a star, then. Nor were audiences in the fifties, with their flighty and fanciful entertainments still front and center, likely to have embraced the darker aspects of its storytelling. Alas, the mood all across America had sincerely dimmed after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy – the event taking place just days after cast and crew arrived in Columbus to begin principle photography. McQueen, an ardent Kennedy supporter, seemed to take the news doubly bad, retreating into his own cocoon between takes and keeping an impossibly low-key attitude for the remainder of the company’s stay in Texas. The production was also dogged by inhospitable weather; intense heat and a chronic – if intermittent – wind storm that forced director, Mulligan to attempt to shoot around the strong breezes, blowing dust and debris into his camera lens. During the planting of the ‘china berry’ tree in the front yard, the velocity of the wind appears to vary from shot to shot, from intense to a light rustling breeze. Necessitating take after take, also resulted in an obvious flub that has since stayed in the movie. McQueen’s Henry takes the potted sapling and plunks it into the ground – pot and all – practically ensuring it will never reach maturation.

Baby, the Rain Must Fall opens with a jazzy riff of the title tune. We witness Miss T.V. Smith (Zamah Cunningham) standing at the side of the road overlooking a desolate prairie that stretches on into infinity (shades of Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, 1959). At present, a bus pulls off the highway to collect the old woman. As she lazily slumps into the seat next to Georgette Thomas, coddling six-year-old Margaret Rose, Miss Smith makes an instant, and rather damn nuisance of herself, prodding to know the particulars of Georgette’s journey, and then, pointing out convicts toiling at the side of the road in one of the state-sanctioned prison work projects. Referring rather condescendingly to the prisoners as riffraff who would just as easily slit someone’s throat as sheer the wild grasses, the pensive look that instantly envelopes Georgette’s face suggests her words have cut far too close to home. And, indeed, we later surmise Georgette’s estranged husband, Henry, has been serving time in the state penitentiary. Georgette is on her way to Columbus where she hopes to arrive within weeks of Henry’s parole – ready and waiting patiently. However, upon arriving in town, Georgette is introduced to the town’s sheriff, Slim. Unknowing even of Georgette’s existence, much less she has married Henry and has a daughter by him, Slim explains that Henry, far from being locked up, is actually rooming with his employer, the Tillmans. By day, he does chores for room and board. By night, he performs at the Wagon Wheel – a greasy spoon attracting young folk eager to dance their shoes off.

After being incarcerated for stabbing a man during a drunken brawl, Henry’s stepmother, Kate Dawson all but wrote her young charge off as ‘no good’. And, in reality, Henry seems to be running true to form. In point of fact, he has not given Georgette even an ounce of consideration since abandoning her in another town. Now, Dawson is gravely ill, shielded from Henry’s indiscretions by her ever-devoted housekeeper, Catherine (Estelle Hemsley). Stricken with a modicum of shame for having left Georgette behind, Henry gets Slim to help him find a house to rent while he re-establishes his singing ambitions. Realizing neither has any money with which to fuel this endeavor and also support a household, Georgette willingly offers to go back to work as a car hop at a diner – the only profession she knows, leaving Margaret Rose in the Tillman’s care by day. Georgette believes in Henry. Were that he was half as worthy of her sacrifice. But Henry is entirely the sort to be discontented easily. The Judge is moderately sympathetic. After all, he recalls so well, having discovered Henry after the death of his parents, then a child sleeping on the steps of the county courthouse. Placing the boy in Dawson’s care seemed like a good idea at the time, but it is a decision he now regrets, as it has only led to a lifetime of animosity between the two.

After setting up house with Georgette, Henry behaves as a husband and father ought. But then, his feet begin to itch for the open road. Moreover, he continues to suffer from nightmares about his stint in prison, fueling his stubborn determination to fast-track his plans to escape, yet again, from the life he currently leads.  Hooking up with one of his groupies at the Wagon Wheel proves disastrous when the woman’s date (John Daheim) breaks in on Henry’s plans to buy her a drink. A fight ensues and Henry pulls out his switchblade to get a little satisfaction. Instead, he is overtaken by the man’s friends and brutally beaten into submission. Returning home banged up and in disgrace, Henry promises Georgette – who has waited up for him – to abandon his singing career. He will concentrate on writing songs and also go back to school to learn a trade. Only a short while later, enraged by this pitiful acquiescence, Henry storms Dawson’s mansion, shouting his diatribes of futile resistance. The next day, Henry is informed by the Judge that Dawson is on her death bed. He attends the dowager in her bedroom while Georgette and Margaret Rose await news in the parlor along with the Tillmans, the Judge and Catherine. Moments before she expires, Dawson opens her eyes and, clearly recognizing Henry, declares him to be ‘no good’. He will always be ‘no good’.

It is this final self-esteem-crushing humiliation that puts Henry over the edge. He decides to get drunk and storms the cemetery, determined to exhume Dawson’s remains. Georgette is mortified by this drunken display, calling on Slim to intervene before the exhumation can be completed. Only Henry, wildly out of control, now attempts to keep Slim at bay with his knife. He is eventually knocked unconscious by Slim and dragged home to sleep it off. However, having broken his parole, Henry is ordered by Slim to surrender to the proper authorities and return to prison for the remainder of his sentence. Unable to comply with this fate – seemingly worse than death for such a free-spirited wanderer – Henry feigns saying goodbye to Margaret Rose before tearing off across the open field on foot. Pursued by Slim, Henry manages to make it to the highway, grabbing onto the back of an open flatbed truck. Regrettably, he is unable to climb aboard and is thrown to the side of the dusty road. A short while later Slim, since grown fond of Georgette and her daughter, elects to move them away to a neighboring town where they can begin their lives anew together. And although Georgette also harbors sentiments toward Slim, she is stirred by the sight of a local police cruiser, passing by with Henry handcuffed in the backseat.

Baby, the Rain Must Fall is a sobering and intense drama, potently acted with an unfettered naturalism. The entire cast play with a sort of sad-eyed disparity for life as it is and as they would sincerely wish it could be. In the penultimate departure from their rugged rental that never quite was ‘a home’ for Georgette and Henry, we catch a brief glimpse of the ‘china berry’ tree Henry planted for his daughter in the front yard, destined to wither and die without any further care. And life, if not fair, nevertheless, has given Henry Thomas exactly what he deserves – a comeuppance for earlier betraying the good woman and daughter he had never known in these six-years since birth, depriving him of her companionship forever. Has Henry learned his lesson? Hardly. He still believes fate is conspiring exclusively against him. Does it really matter now? Probably not. It is, after all, too late to do anything but look back – in anger, with regret and more than a modicum of personal shame and responsibility for the badly mangled mess he has made of all their lives that, if not exactly aligned with the one he had aspired towards, could nevertheless have become a life together worth savoring. The sixties were particularly good at this type of drama; part Tennessee Williams/part Greek tragedy, typifying the moral decline, at least then, on everyone’s lips – America, post-Presidential assassination, enduring one socio-political upheaval after the next; the nation, to have ostensibly lost its way by loosening the yoke of fifties’ buttoned-down conformity too soon and much too fast. Even so, neither director, Robert Mulligan nor screenwriter, Horton Foote are ready to leave their audience hanging on the moral ambiguity of this threshold leading to a Godless/lawless tomorrow. Thus, the penultimate embrace of mother and daughter, as Slim drives them toward an unfixed and very uncertain future, is writ large by Georgette’s confirmed blind optimism; bloodied, perhaps, yet miraculously unbowed. She speaks to Margaret-Rose of the warm Rio Grande Valley, the bright new future ahead, while reflecting on their journey thus far, from Lovelady – the town where she met and wed Henry – to Tyler, from whence they came to Columbus and now…well…hopefully on to better things. We’ll see.     

Baby, the Rain Must Fall arrives on Blu-ray via Twilight Time’s association with Sony – the custodians of the old Columbia Pictures back catalog. And while I have to say, like all other back catalog under Sony’s V.P. Grover Crisp’s custodianship, this 1080p transfer looks a lot better than any previous home video incarnation, there is still much room for improvement. Owing to the studio’s past short-sightedness when archiving their vintage movies, and also, at the mercy of surviving elements, there is only so much one can do. Most of Baby, the Rain Must Fall looks solid, showing off Ernest Laszlo’s uncompromisingly bleak B&W cinematography to its best advantage. There are, however, certain exteriors, shot under varying light conditions, appearing to suffer from blown-out contrast. Yes, the naked flat landscape, with sunshine beating down from overhead can bleach out the fine details. But there are ways to compensate for this natural overexposure to ensure the integrity of the image. However, herein, I see a lot of blown-out contrast that just looks like improperly balanced exposure at best – fine details vanishing in a sea of bleached out whites, with no tonality beyond the very high register. I cannot image this is the way Laszlo shot the picture in 1965, although, I have no way of knowing for certain. There are also a handful of shots that appear marginally softer than the rest. Optical zooms exhibit predictable amplification of natural grain. This too, might have been better resolved with just a tad more digital tinkering to bring the image in line with the shots that immediately precede and follow these optical inserts. At least some care has been paid to basic clean-up, while still leaving film grain intact. However, a few of the night scenes are plagued by edge enhancement. It’s not egregious, but it is definitely there. Overall, I was hardly impressed with the way this transfer looks. It’s middling, at best. The 2.0 DTS mono audio is adequate, though just. Uncharacteristic for a TT release – no extras, not even an isolated score or audio commentary. Bottom line: Baby, the Rain Must Fall is such a great movie I am going to overlook the aforementioned shortcomings and recommend this one for content. Just be aware – it’s not up to Sony’s usual high standards. Regrets.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

0