It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Katharine Hepburn takes the lead in The Rainmaker, in one of her finest performances. She's an old maid living in a small town, keeping house for her father and brothers, Lloyd Bridges, Earl Holliman, and Cameron Prud'Homme. She's secretly got a crush on Sheriff Wallace Ford, but he doesn't pay her any attention. The town is going through an unprecedented drought, and Burt Lancaster, a travelling conman, comes to town claiming to be a "rainmaker". As he tries to convince the town he's genuine, he also convinces old maid Kate that she's beautiful and desirable.While Kate's and Burt's acting really make the movie, the story itself is a classic. It was also adapted to a Broadway musical called 110 in the Shade, by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. The characters are real and vivid, and even though it's obvious it was adapted from a play—written by N. Richard Nash—it's still very enjoyable even for modern audiences. Who doesn't wonder with fear and sadness that they'll never find love, and who doesn't want to believe in that last scrap of hope even when it might be fake? I don't actually like the film, but I appreciate how beloved it is by others. I don't really care for Kate's character and choices, but it wouldn't be fair for me to write a negative review for personal reasons.The film is chalk full of famous moments: romantic, funny, and wise. "When a man makes a point of ignoring you, he ain't ignoring you at all," is one of my favorite lines. And while I won't spoil the ending for you, it is incredibly famous. You might have seen it before in classic film montages. Burt Lancaster's iconic final line, which unfortunately I can't quote here because it would spoil things, is my favorite part of the movie.

There are two main faults with this movie. The lesser fault: (although it may contribute to the larger fault) is that the director (Joseph Anthony) had more of a history in stage work than films, and it shows. In fact, I didn't know of Anthony until watching this film, but even before I looked him up, this film felt very "stagey" to me.The bigger problem here is overacting by a number of the actors...and my guess is that that related directly to the film's director. Burt Lancaster sometimes tended to overact, such as can be seen in "Elmer Gantry" and here; he is better when he exhibits self-control such as in "Airport" and "Judgement At Nuremberg".Katherine Hepburn was always less likely to overact, and rarely does here. So her performance seems a little more realistic. Wendell Corey does alright here; less known, his performance is probably the most realistic in the film. Lloyd Bridges always more suited to television, but he was sometimes pretty decent in films; here, however, he also overacts. Although not as badly as Earl Holliman does here -- truly excessive. Cameron Prud'Homme as the father is okay...with a little overacting.Despite the preponderance of overacting, there are some good scenes here. Particularly notable are some of the scenes between Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster when both drop the overacting and control themselves.The story is a decent one, although there are times that the musical scores almost makes you believe that the actors are about ready to burst into song.On balance, due to the deficiencies noted, I'll have to give this film a 6, which I consider to be below average. I'm glad I watched it...once, but I won't want to ever watch it again.

"The Rainmaker" is, officially, a Western. It is set in a small town rural town in the West, (probably in the 1920s or 1930s, to judge from the cars and costumes we see), but it bears little resemblance to most Westerns from the fifties. This was the decade when the cinema first faced serious competition from television, and spectacular Westerns featuring exciting action sequences shot against the dramatic scenery of the American West were one of Hollywood's major weapons in its fight against the newcomer. ("Shane", "The Naked Spur", "The Searchers" and "The Big Country" are all good examples). This film, by contrast, is adapted from a stage play, and it shows.The plot is a simple one. It is a hot summer and the area is suffering from a severe drought. A man calling himself Bill Starbuck arrives in town, promising that he can make it rain. A spinster named Lizzie Curry falls in love with him. The film tells the story of the effect which Starbuck has on Lizzie and the other townspeople. The film's message is, effectively, "learn to love yourself and to believe in yourself". Starbuck, of course, is not a genuine rainmaker but a con-man; even his real surname is not Starbuck but Smith. The important thing is that he projects such assurance and self-belief that others accept him as genuine, and under his influence Lizzie, hitherto put upon and patronised by her father and two brothers for whom she acts as housekeeper on the family cattle ranch, learns to believe in herself too.I have never seen the play on which "The Rainmaker" is based, so I do not know how well this story might work on the stage. (I understand that it is a staple of the American theatre, but on this side of the Atlantic both the play and its author, one N. Richard Nash, are virtually unknown). Unfortunately, the film does not work for me, and when I recently saw it on television I was disappointed; I had been hoping for something far better, given that it stars two actors as talented as Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn.Part of the problem is miscasting. Hepburn is quite wrong for the part of Lizzie for three reasons, namely age, looks and personality. We never learn exactly how old Lizzie is, but I think we are supposed to assume that she is considerably younger than Hepburn's 49 years at the time the film was made, possibly in her thirties. Secondly, Lizzie is supposed to be plain, whereas Hepburn in her youth was considered one of Hollywood's most beautiful actresses, and even in her late forties was still strikingly handsome. Thirdly, and most importantly, Hepburn spent most of her career playing strong, independent and capable woman, and is not really credible as a downtrodden, put-upon spinster lacking in self-confidence. Her "Best Actress" Oscar nomination today seems incredible. (Mind you, there seems to have been something odd going on at the Academy Awards for 1956; that was the year which saw Don Murray's bizarre "Best Supporting Actor" nomination for his awful performance in "Bus Stop" and Kirk Douglas unaccountably losing "Best Actor" to Yul Brynner). Lancaster as Starbuck is better suited to his role, but this is not one of his great performances and he was to be far better as another charismatic con-man, Elmer Gantry, four years later.My other problem with the film is to do with the direction. I was not surprised to learn that Joseph Anthony was a theatrical director who directed Nash's play on stage but had never previously directed a movie, as he seems to have made this film on the basis that there was no essential difference between the two media. There is little attempt to open the story out and little in the way of action; most scenes take place indoors and consist mainly dialogue rather than physical action. The result is a static, talky film, dominated by interminable conversations. Another reviewer claims that the film could have been far better had it been made by a major cinema director such as Fred Zinnemann or George Stevens who would no doubt have escaped from the "filmed theatre" style of film-making and made maximum use of the greater freedom which the cinematic medium offers. That is doubtless true, but I suspect that Zinnemann or Stevens, or any of the other great directors of the period, would have demanded from the producers more artistic freedom and a much greater budget than Anthony appears to have had at his disposal. 4/10

I loved this movie when I first saw it 40 years ago. I remember being dazzled by Burt Lancaster's performance. Seeing it again, Burt Lancaster's performance is still wonderful, but I see a lot more flaws in the film as a whole.People have weighed in on the central issue of Katherine Hepburn's performance. Some think it is a great performance and some think that she is miscast. I think both are right. She does a wonderful acting job, filled with nice moments, but she is miscast in the role. She breaks what I will name now as the "Seven Year Rule". While an actor or actress can easily always play older, they should never play a character more than seven years younger than they are. You can get away with playing a high school student until you're about 24. After that, it looks fake. By the way, this rule works for male actors too. Gary Cooper ruined "Love in the Afternoon" when at 56 he tried to play a 40 year old having an affair with a 20 year old looking Audrey Hepburn.In this movie, Hepburn, who was 49 at the time, was playing a character who was supposed to be around 30. She could have passed for 42, but no-one could have mistaken her for a 30 year old. At 30 a woman desperate for a man to marry her is still a source of comedy, at 42, it is really a source for bathos. Still at times, she does make you look past her age and feel the depth of emotion of the character.The camera placement and editing of the movie really does make it look like a stage play, although the sets are quite nice and realistic.Also, the second and third acts are really slow. If redone today, at least 20 minutes and perhaps 30 would have to be cut to give it a more modern pace. For example, a scene where the deputy is invited for dinner drags on for almost 15 minutes. It could easily have been done in 5 minutes or less.Still, we're getting some beautiful technicolor here and we're getting Burt Lancaster in one of his most exuberant and charming performances. He is having so much fun with the part that it is impossible not to enjoy the movie when he's on-screen (which is only about 40 minutes, alas.Apparently, Elvis Presley was up for the Earl Holloman role. While Hollowman did win a Golden Globe, he now seems to be overacting. Probably Elvis would have done as well and made the movie a much bigger hit.