The Rain People

The Rain People is a 1969 movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Perhaps best known as a vehicle for future superstars James Caan, Robert Duvall, and as assistant director George Lucas the movie was a moderate success.

Starring Shirley Knight as Natalie Ravenna a young housewife unsure of what she wants in life. Upon finding out that she is pregnant she takes off on a trip, one that soon becomes a cross country trek. Her husband is none too pleased.

Along the way she picks up a hitchhiker named Jimmy Kilgannon. Nicknamed Killer, Jimmy is an ex college football player who has been injured and suffered brain damamge from repeated blows to the head. Played effectively by Caan he has been given a thousand dollars and told to leave school. We never learn the real specifics of what happened to Jimmy but from the flashbacks in his memory ( that we see ) it appears that he stayed on at school, doing odd jobs, raking leaves and such but eventually has been asked to leave.

Soon after she picks him up Natalie realizes that Jimmy, " Killer", cannot take care of himself. She is struggling with her own identity issues however and does not feel like she can or frankly wants to take care of him. After attempting to find him a job as a laborer for an odd pet shop she realizes she cannot leave him, the man only want to take the boys money and use him for slave wages.

Eventually Natalie runs afoul of a local law officer and things get even stranger. Robert Duvall plays a police officer that has his whole own set of issues.

How these people, connect, interconnect and affect each other's lives makes for an interesting movie. Not much more. It is not a great movie, it struggles to be good but Caan and Duvall are interesting in these early roles.