Rider on the Rain
| Rider on the Rain | |
|---|---|
French film poster
|
|
| Directed by | René Clément |
| Produced by | Serge Silberman |
| Written by | Sébastien Japrisot, Lorenzo Ventavoli |
| Starring |
Marlène Jobert Charles Bronson Annie Cordy |
| Music by | Francis Lai |
| Distributed by | Avco-Embassy (US) |
|
Release date
|
January 21, 1970 (France) |
|
Running time
|
120 min. |
| Country | Italy, France |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $30,964,823 4,763,822 admissions (France) |
Rider on the Rain (French: Le Passager de la pluie) is a 1970 French mystery thriller film starring Charles Bronson, directed by René Clément, produced by Serge Silberman, with film music composed by Francis Lai.
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.
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 woman 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.
...
Wikipedia