The Rainmaker

Clever play translated directly to film doesn't lose much as a play but makes for a bit of a trial as a movie. Performances are extremely quirky. Lancaster is completely out of the traces, Earl Holliman repeats his bumpkin performance from Forbidden Planet, Cameron Prud'homme's interesting vocal performance careens from comedic to bathic in the same speech, and Katherine Hepburn overwhelms her poor part like a tsunami. All this is given a pretty luxe studio treatment, including a busy, dialed-up score by Alex North. The result is pleasantly sincere and unchallenging, if not annoyingly obvious. Good use of this movie is as an example of how a movie isn't a play.