Baby, the Rain Must Fall

1965 "The more he gets into trouble, the more he gets under her skin!"
6.3| 1h40m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 12 January 1965 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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Henry Thomas tries to overcome the horrors of his childhood and start a new life with his wife and kid. However, his abusive step-mother and his dependence on alcohol threaten to ruin his future.

Genre

Drama, Romance

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Director

Robert Mulligan

Production Companies

Columbia Pictures

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Baby, the Rain Must Fall Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped
Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie
BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Woodyanders Georgette Thomas (a fine and affecting performance by Lee Remick) and her little daughter Margaret Rose (Kimberly Block, who's both adorable and heartbreaking) arrive in the small town of Columbus, Texas so Georgette can be reunited with her recently paroled ex-con husband Henry (an earnest, excellent, and engaging performance by Steve McQueen). Aspiring singer/songwriter Henry yearns to make it big with his music, so he performs gigs at local roadhouses when he isn't doing his best to prevent dark memories from his tragic past from causing him to fall short of his goals.Director Robert Mulligan, working from a subtle and sensitive script by Horton Foote, handles the delicate subject matter with admirable taste and restraint, offers a strong evocation of the dreary rural setting (the rowdy atmosphere of the smoky honky-tonk bars in particular is exceptionally well captured), maintains a properly serious and brooding tone throughout, and keeps mushy sentiment to a refreshing minimum. McQueen and especially Remick do sterling work in their roles, with splendid support from Don Murray as Henry's concerned childhood friend and deputy sheriff Slim. Henry's struggle to surmount the demons of his troubled past and burning desire to make something of his heretofore wasted life with his music give this picture a wrenching poignancy. Ernest Laszlo's handsome black and white cinematography provides a sumptuous look. Kudos are also in order for Elmer Bernstein's spare moody score. Alas, McQueen's painfully obvious lip-syncing definitely leaves something to be desired and his too smooth singing voice doesn't come close to matching his natural speaking voice. That criticism aside, it's overall a quite good and moving film.
eigaeye This film comes close to being something truly great. It is beautifully photographed and acted (particularly the work of Lee Remick), and the theme, not confronted head on, of child abandonment/abuse, which plays under the images, is quite powerfully evoked. The film's shortcomings are mainly mechanical: some rough transitions in the story-telling; the unsatisfactory attempts by Steve McQueen at miming to a too-professional singing voice; and the omission from the scenario of one or two more direct references to the childhood from which McQueen's dysfunctional character has emerged. Certainly, the loving inactions between Remick's character and her screen daughter, Margaret Rose, are completely convincing and form a strong counterpoint to her husband's damaged personality. But we are not sure where we should be focusing: on their relationship, on the wife and husband relationship, or on his relationship with his adoptive mother (who appears only briefly, but is the unspoken menace). Of course, this difficulty is very much part of what the film is about; however, the various relationships sit so apart from each other, the tragic impact of the one on the others is somewhat lost. I suppose it is a testament to the delicacy and understated-ness of Robert Mulligan's directorial touch (seen to greater effect in 'To Kill a Mockingbird') that this sort of reaction is called up at all. One feels this film has so much that is good, the potential is there... A reflection of its time, perhaps: while it was being made, news broke of a shooting in Dallas and the death of a young president.
bkoganbing The team that brought you To Kill A Mockingbird has also given us Baby The Rain Must Fall another southern based drama though the protagonist is hardly as admirable as Atticus Finch. Steve McQueen and Lee Remick star in this film as a married couple trying to make a new start in life after McQueen is released on parole from prison.McQueen is a musician/singer of sorts and while I doubt he could have a career in big time country music, he doesn't have the talent to make the really big time. You won't see McQueen at the Grand Ole Opry, but he could make a respectable living doing the honky-tonks if it weren't for an ungovernable temper. In the few instances we see it displayed we never do see exactly what sets him off, the film might have been better if we had, we might understand McQueen more.But the temper is a given and he's on parole. A wife and a daughter who the people of his Texas home town have never met and don't know the existence of, have come to join him. Lee Remick is the patient and loving wife, but she's coming slowly to the realization that this just isn't going to work.Don Murray plays the local sheriff and a childhood friend who does what he can for McQueen. It's interesting to speculate whether Remick and Murray will get together afterward. Paul Fix has the same kind of part he did in To Kill A Mockingbird as a kindly judge. If James Dean had lived this would have been a perfect role for him. But McQueen who had a background of foster care, who was a product of the social welfare system raising him, had a lot to draw on for his performance.Steve McQueen did his own vocals though country singer Glenn Yarborough had a hit from the title song. Better that way then to have a real singer doing it lest the viewer think this guy has the talent to make it big. Although this is not as good as To Kill A Mockingbird, writer Horton Foote and director Robert Mulligan did a bang up job in Baby The Rain Must Fall.
Poseidon-3 Based on a short-lived Horton Foote play "The Traveling Lady", this character study focuses on faithful wife Remick, who is reuniting with her husband McQueen who has just been released from prison after several years following a stabbing. Arriving in his hometown, she is surprised to find that he has actually been released for close to a month and is working for room and board at a local couple's home while pursuing a career as a honky-tonk singer at night. Overseeing his behavior with great dismay is his decrepit foster mother Simmons, who prefers him to attend night school in order to make a living. As McQueen struggles to readjust to life on the outside, now with a family to support, he longs for Simmons' approval of his dream to sing for a living. Meanwhile, as Remick begins to break under the weight of McQueen's issues, local Deputy Sheriff Murray provides support, even as he is grappling with the loss of his own spouse. Remick, an actress who usually exuded brains and sophistication, tries hard here to present a simple and plain character and generally succeeds. McQueen takes on a role that is almost autobiographical in terms of the character's past. He is quite authentic and believable except when it comes to the singing. Here he is notably poor at lip-synching and effectively rendering the musical numbers in the film. It's a shame because, otherwise, this is among his best work as a legitimate actor. Murray is amiable and sensitive. Block gives a very unaffected and naturalistic performance as McQueen and Remick's little girl. (This is her only screen credit.) A number of talented character actors dot the cast, though most of them could do a lot more than for what they are called upon. It is perhaps not the most arresting movie since very little actually happens over the course of it, but it does contain some committed acting work from its cast, sports some nice black and white photography, has a vivid, weary, small-town atmosphere and begins with Saul Bass-inspired credits. Also, the title tune (a hit single for Glen Yarbrough) and another one or two numbers are heard. Impatient viewers may bail out long before the end, though fans of the stars should see it and will likely enjoy it.