Rider On The Rain
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''Rider on the Rain'' (French: ''Le passager de la pluie'') is a 1970 French
mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...
thriller film starring
Marlène Jobert Marlène Jobert (born 4 November 1940) is a French actress and author. Life and career Jobert was born in Algiers, Algeria, to a Sephardic Jewish and Pied-Noir family, the daughter of Eliane Azulay and Charles Jobert, who served in the French A ...
and
Charles Bronson Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor. Known for his "granite features and brawny physique," he gained international fame for his starring roles in action, Western, and war ...
, directed by
René Clément René Clément (; 18 March 1913 – 17 March 1996) was a French film director and screenwriter. Life and career Clément studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. In 1936, he directed hi ...
and scripted by
Sébastien Japrisot Sébastien Japrisot (4 July 1931 – 4 March 2003) was a French author, screenwriter and film director. His pseudonym was an anagram of Jean-Baptiste Rossi, his real name. Renowned for subverting the rules of the crime genre, Japrisot broke dow ...
, produced by
Serge Silberman Serge Silberman (1 May 1917 – 22 July 2003) was a French film producer. Early life Silberman was born in Łódź, then a part of the Regency Kingdom of Poland in a Jewish family. During World War II, Silberman survived Nazi concentration camps ...
, with film music composed by
Francis Lai Francis Albert Lai (; 26 April 19327 November 2018) was a French composer, noted for his film scores. He won the 1970 Oscar for Best Music, Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the film '' Love Story''. The s ...
. It won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is a Golden Globe Award presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film coul ...
.


Plot

Opening with a quotation from
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
to suggest that the heroine is like
Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...
, the film starts on a rainy autumn afternoon in a small resort on the south coast of France. Mellie, newly married to Toni, an airline navigator who is away at work, sees a strange man get off a bus. In a shop trying on a dress to wear to a wedding next day, she sees the man spying on her. When she goes home, he sneaks into the house, ties her up and rapes her. Realising after she has freed herself that he is still in the house, she gets out a shotgun and kills him. Then she drives the body to a cliff and tips it into the sea, saying nothing to her jealous husband when he returns. Next day at the wedding an uninvited American called Dobbs speaks to her. A body has been found and he claims she killed him, which she denies. The day after that, when her husband is away again, Dobbs sneaks into their house and questions Mellie roughly. She begins to think that the rapist had business with Toni, possibly drug related, and that is why Dobbs is so persistent. She goes with him to the bank and, drawing out all she has, offers it to him. But he doesn't want money, just the truth. Next morning Mellie finds the rapist's travel bag, containing 60,000 US dollars. Sneaking into Dobbs' hotel room, she searches it and discovers that he is a US Army colonel on a secret mission. He turns up and tells her a woman who works at a restaurant in Paris has been arrested for the murder. Distraught that an innocent woman is being charged, Mellie jumps onto a plane to Paris and goes to the restaurant, who send her to where the woman's sister works. This proves to be a brothel, where three criminals question Mellie roughly about the dead man. Dobbs, who has been trailing her, breaks in and saves her. Taking her home, Dobbs reveals that the corpse is not that of the rapist but another man's. The rapist was an escapee from a US military prison who had attacked three women in similar fashion before Mellie. She then tells him where she tipped the body, which is found by police frogmen. For Dobbs the case is closed and he does not tell the police about Mellie. Nor does he mention the 60,000 dollars. In a closing homage to
Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
, it is revealed that the rapist's name was Mac Guffin.


Cast


Production


Development

The film was shot in both English and French versions. In an interview with ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', Bronson said he learned his lines in French phonetically, so that his own voice would be heard on the soundtrack. It was the last time he did this for European films, allowing himself to be dubbed-over in all subsequent films.


Filming

Filming began June 2, 1969 on the Giens Peninsula and finished August 4, 1969 on the French Riviera. Some scenes were shot in Paris.


Music

"Rider on the Rain" is also the main theme of the original movie soundtrack (with lyrics by
Sébastien Japrisot Sébastien Japrisot (4 July 1931 – 4 March 2003) was a French author, screenwriter and film director. His pseudonym was an anagram of Jean-Baptiste Rossi, his real name. Renowned for subverting the rules of the crime genre, Japrisot broke dow ...
and sung by French chansonette Severine). The American singer-songwriter
Peggy Lee Norma Deloris Egstrom (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002), known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress, over a career spanning seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalis ...
wrote English lyrics for the song, and recorded it on her 1971 album ''
Make It With You "Make It with You" is a song written by David Gates and originally recorded by American pop-rock group Bread, of which Gates was a member. Gates and drummer Mike Botts are the only members of the group to appear on the recording which was a No. ...
'' as "Passenger of the Rain".


Release


Home media

In 2011, Wild East released ''Rider on the Rain'' on a limited-edition DVD alongside ''
Adieu l'ami ''Adieu l'ami'' (also known as ''Farewell, Friend'', reissued as ''Honor Among Thieves'') is a 1968 French-Italian heist crime film directed by Jean Herman and produced by Serge Silberman, with a screenplay by Sebastien Japrisot. The film was a g ...
'' (''Farewell, Friend''), also starring Charles Bronson. The 2009 British DVD, released by Optimum/Studio Canal contains both the French and English language versions. The French version runs a few minutes longer.


Reception


Box office

The film was a big hit in France, the third most popular movie of 1970. Bronson's agent Paul Kohner said it was "the turning point for Bronson – and probably his best. In a few weeks, his name was so big in Europe that hundreds of theatres there were running old American pictures with the name Bronson above the title, even though originally he had played the third or fourth lead."


Critical response

The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' called the film "a spellbinding suspense and detection story, done with the kind of affectionate tip of the chapeau to the Hitchcock Hollywood mastery of the form." ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' called it "one of those silk-purse-from a sow's ear exercises, fairly absorbing if you go to it casually, but possibly a cheat if you go expecting the last word in civilised movie expense." Richard Schikel wrote in ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' that though the film was intended as homage to Hitchcock, it "lacks the humor, the humanity and the sure sense of ''mise en scène'' that distinguishes Hitchcock's great entertainments." In ''The Guardian'', Philip French called it a cool, stylish, demented Hitchcockian thriller" and compared it to "''
Charade Charade or charades may refer to: Games * Charades, originally "acting charades", a parlor game Films/TV * ''Charade'' (1953 film), an American film featuring James Mason * ''Charade'' (1963 film), an American film starring Cary Grant and A ...
'' reworked by
Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...
."


Accolades

In 1970, the film won the Special David of the
David di Donatello Awards The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's ''David'', a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the ''Accademia del Cinema Italiano'' (The Academy of Italian Cinema). There are 26 award cat ...
. In 1971, it won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is a Golden Globe Award presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film coul ...
, was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the
Edgar Allan Poe Awards The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...
, and for the
Golden Laurel The Laurel Awards was an American cinema awards system established to honor films, actors, actresses, producers, directors, and composers. This award was created by the ''Motion Picture Exhibitor'' magazine, and ran from 1948 to 1971 (with the ...
.


References


External links

* * {{Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1965–1989 1970 films 1970s mystery films 1970s psychological thriller films French psychological thriller films Italian psychological thriller films 1970s French-language films Films directed by René Clément Films produced by Serge Silberman Films scored by Francis Lai Films about rape Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe winners English-language French films English-language Italian films 1970s English-language films 1970 multilingual films French multilingual films Italian multilingual films 1970s Italian films 1970s French films