Taglines: The glass keeps out the rain but not…her terror! her attacker! her victim!
Rider on the Rain movie synopsis. Adapted from a novel by acclaimed mystery writer Sébastien Japrisot, this French/Italian nailbiter stars Marlène Jobert as Mélancolie “Mellie” Mau, a young woman stalked by on a rainy afternoon by a mysterious stranger. The man eventually breaks in on Mellie while her husband is gone and rapes her.
She grabs a shotgun and kills her assailant, dumping the body into the ocean. When the body is recovered, American military officer Dobbs (Charles Bronson) accuses Mellie of the murder — and of stealing the U.S. Army money that the rapist had been carrying with him — and that’s only the beginning. The plot piles one twist upon another, deliriously confounding the audience at every turn.
Rider on the Rain (French: Le Passager de la Pluie) is a 1970 French mystery thriller film starring Charles Bronson, directed by René Clément and scripted by Sébastien Japrisot, produced by Serge Silberman, with film music composed by Francis Lai. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
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.”
“Rider on the Rain” is also the main theme of the original movie soundtrack (with lyrics by Sébastien Japrisot and sung by French chansonette Severine). The American singer-songwriter Peggy Lee wrote English lyrics for the song, and recorded it on her 1971 album Make It With You as “Passenger of the Rain”.
About the Story
Opening with a quotation from Lewis Carroll to suggest that the heroine is like Alice in Wonderland, 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.
Rider on the Rain (1970)
Directed by: René Clément
Starring: Marlène Jobert. Charles Bronson, Annie Cordy, Gabriele Tinti, Jean Gaven, Corinne Marchand, Jill Ireland, Ellen Bahl, Steve Eckardt, Marika Green, Jean-Daniel Ehrmann
Screenplay by: Sébastien Japrisot
Production Design by: Pierre Guffroy
Cinematography by: Andréas Winding
Film Editing by: Françoise Javet
Costume Design by: Rosine Delamare
Set Decoration by: Pierre Lefait
Makeup Department: Jacqueline Pipard
Music by: Francis Lai
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, sexuality and some thematic elements.
Distributed by: Avco-Embassy (US)
Release Date: January 21, 1970 (France)
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