‘The Rainmaker’ from 1956: Drought and Atmospheric Rivers

(L-R) Joseph Sullivan, Geraldine Page, Cameron Prud'homme, Darren McGavin, and Albert Salmi in the Broadway production of "The Rainmaker" from 1954. Public Domain

Commentary

“The Rainmaker” is a fanciful title for a film. Just from the title, it could be about a native witch doctor or perhaps a reference to symbolic precipitation. Nevertheless, this 1956 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster is set in the United States of America and based on a real person who claimed he could relieve drought by bringing rain. It was adapted from the 1954 play of the same name by N. Richard Nash; since the playwright himself wrote the story for the screen, the film was probably very similar to the play. Although the plot was Nash’s invention, it featured a character inspired by a man who made a name for himself in Southern California a hundred years ago, Charles M. Hatfield.

I added this film to our watchlist several months ago when looking for movies with Katharine Hepburn. I didn’t immediately want to watch it, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, having been released in 1956, it’s a few years after my preferred era of filmmaking. Secondly, the pairing of Hepburn and Lancaster seemed a little unlikely to me. I scrolled past it for months, saving it for perhaps a later date.

I gave this film some serious consideration for the first time when I was doing research on the history of different areas in my new home of San Diego County. When looking at the Valley Center Historical Society’s website, I learned that famous rainmaker Charles Hatfield lived in Valley Center in a small house at 29326 Valley Center Road for many years in the early 20th century. From this historic site, which was demolished in 2013, he is said to have brought many historic rains to the area. I was fascinated to learn his life had inspired the 1956 movie. Nevertheless, I didn’t decide to watch the movie until a few days ago. Weeks of historic rain and successive “atmospheric rivers” in Southern California recently have made me think about this movie and San Diego’s history of pluviculture, the science of rainmaking.

A lobby card for the 1956 film "The Rainmaker." MovieStillsDB

A Dry Story

This story takes place in the early 1930s, in a small midwestern town called Three Point. It centers around the Curry family, a family of cattle ranchers consisting of a widowed father (Cameron Prud’Homme) and his three grown children. He has two sons, cynical Noah (Lloyd Bridges) and naïve Jim (Earl Holliman), and a no-nonsense daughter named Lizzie (Hepburn) who takes care of them all. H. C. Curry and his sons, especially the elder Noah, are concerned Lizzie is doomed to be a spinster, since she is plain and refuses to flirt or employ other girlish tricks to get a husband. Mr. Curry enjoys having Lizzie around the house, since he adores his daughter, but he knows she feels like her life is incomplete because she doesn’t have a man who loves her.

Meanwhile, their cattle are dying in the sweltering summer heat as a drought stretches on, with no chance of rain in sight. After a trip to secure a husband for Lizzie is a complete failure, Lizzie’s marital prospects seem just as dry. The one man in town whom Lizzie fancies is J. S. File (Wendell Corey), the stoic deputy sheriff. Her father and brothers go into town to casually invite him to dinner, but he knows exactly what they have in mind. He bluntly tells them he has no intention of marrying Lizzie or anyone else. As the argument escalates into a fist fight with Jim, the family goes home, losing hope of her ever getting married. Before H. C. leaves, however, he tells File everyone knows he isn’t a widower but a bitter divorcé whose wife left him years ago.

Actress Katharine Hepburn during the filming of "The Rainmaker," circa 1956. Archive Photos/Getty Images

The evening is a huge disappointment when Lizzie, who made an elaborate dinner and put on a fancy dress, realizes File isn’t coming. However, the evening takes a strange turn when a mysterious stranger bursts into the Curry home, uninvited. His name is Bill Starbuck (Lancaster), and he calls himself a rainmaker. He claims that for a hundred dollars, he can use the strange contraptions on his wagon to bring rain within 24 hours. Lizzie and Noah immediately renounce him as a charlatan, but their father and Jim are entranced by his flashy presentation and persuasive speech. Eventually, Mr. Curry decides to take a chance, so he pays him to bring rain and invites him to join them for dinner. Starbuck flirts with Lizzie as soon as he sees her, but she rebuffs his flattery. Nevertheless, she can’t understand why she hates him so much. Could it be her heart is as thirsty for love as the land is for rain, but she’s given up hope of both?

A Soggy History

Bill Starbuck is a classic flimflam man. When the movie begins, we see him pedaling tornado rods to a crowd of curious onlookers in a Kansas town, calling himself Tornado Johnson. When the sheriff chases him out of town, we realize he is a charlatan. Any doubts on this point are dispelled when he introduces himself to the Currys as Starbuck, a rainmaker. Although he sounds very convincing when selling his drought-banishing abilities to the ranchers, he is basically a medicine showman, selling a bill of goods about his mystical powers to bring rain. That’s how he differs from Charles Hatfield. Hatfield didn’t ride around in a Gypsy-like wagon, telling his customers to beat on a bass drum to summon the thunder and paint white arrows on the ground. He called himself a “moisture accelerator” and claimed to use scientific methods, saying, “I do not make rain. That would be an absurd claim. I simply attract clouds, and they do the rest.”

A photo of Charles Hatfield. Courtesy of the Valley Center Historical Society

When the Currys first question Starbuck about how he summons rain, he answers that he uses sodium chloride, explaining, “Pitch it up high, right up to the clouds.” When Lizzie responds that this is bunk, he agrees, saying that’s what fakes would do, but not him. Nevertheless, the described method is similar to what Charles Hatfield claimed to use in real life. Using the “smell-makers” method of producing rain, he would make a concoction of 23 chemicals and place them in cauldrons atop a 20-foot tower. Within days, rain would be pouring from the sky after months of drought. However, he often attracted more trouble than fortune for himself, since the rain he seemed to summon for parched lands frequently came in torrential proportions. He gained fame and notoriety but not without lawsuits and millions of dollars in liabilities.

Hatfield’s history in Southern California is fascinating and amazingly local for those who are familiar with North San Diego County. Born in Kansas, Hatfield moved with his family to a small farm in Gopher Valley (near Escondido) in 1888, where he experimented with chemicals and a teakettle’s steam in the kitchen. In December 1915, the city of San Diego hired him to bring rain to the city, having heard of his success in bringing rain to other parts of the state. He agreed to fill the new Morena Reservoir within a year for $10,000, so he and his brother constructed towers for his chemical formula in the fields outside of the city.

In January, the rains came in massive proportions. It rained so heavily, the reservoir overflowed and the Lower Otay Dam broke. In the flooding, many people died, although the exact number varies from one report to the next. Because of the extensive damage to roads, bridges, railroad tracks, and telephone lines, San Diego County was cut off from the outside world for months. Hatfield never collected his fee, since the local authorities decided that, if he accepted the credit, he would also have to accept responsibility for all the damage.

A photo of the Morena Reservoir in 1918 from the San Diego Historical Society. Public Domain

A Seedy Explanation

Katharine Hepburn was nearing fifty when she played Lizzie, who is obviously supposed to be much younger than the actress really was. Nevertheless, she was excellent in the part, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Although Miss Hepburn doesn’t really look like a woman who has recently reached marrying age, she is a perfect choice for the character. Her maturity and aversion to makeup and other flirty frills make her more convincingly “plain,” as her brother Noah frequently describes her.

Burt Lancaster is extremely charismatic as Starbuck, the exciting weather manipulator who makes people dare to believe with his fast talk and winning smile. Lancaster wasn’t the first choice for this role, since William Holden was originally cast in the part. After he left the production, Lancaster himself asked producer Hal B. Wallis for the part. Holden would have been great, but I think Lancaster was ideal as the rainmaker. I think he even bears a resemblance to Hatfield in some pictures.

As California experiences one “atmospheric river” and “bomb cyclone” after another this winter going into spring, it’s interesting to think about Charles Hatfield and his possible powers as a rainmaker. Was he a really lucky charlatan? That seems unlikely, since, unlike Starbuck in the movie, he only accepted money after it rained. If he never produced rain, where would the profit be? Besides, we know that it actually did rain on multiple occasions after he was hired, over 500 times, according to Hatfield himself. Today, many people believe he was not a rainmaker but a well-versed meteorologist who could predict rain with great accuracy and then earn money by saying he brought it! However, there is no established proof that his scientific formula either worked or didn’t work.

What if Charles Hatfield actually could summon rain? Is it possible he possessed such powerful knowledge yet took his secret to the grave with him, as commonly asserted? There are many mysterious details about Mr. Hatfield. During the Great Depression, he went back to selling sewing machines and living an uneventful life. His last connection with rainmaking was when he accepted an invitation to attend the premiere of the 1956 film, which was one of his last public outings before dying at age 84 in 1958. However, he had stated earlier in his life that, while he wouldn’t sell his secret formula to an individual, he would sell it to the government. With California’s long-sought rains bringing enough water damage to make the city of Oceanside declare a state of emergency, maybe someone knows Hatfield’s secret!