Rider on the Rain

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.

Plot summary

In a god-forsaken, off-season French seaside town we meet Marlène Jobert starring as the diffident, nail-biting, beautiful and lonely Mélancolie "Mellie" Mau, who watches a mysterious stranger step down from the bus into the pouring rain. He follows and eventually rapes her, while her husband (an airline navigator) is away from home. However, when coming to her senses again, she manages to kill her attacker and dispose of the corpse. She decides to keep quiet about the whole incident to avoid complications with her jealous husband. — Enter Charles Bronson as the tough US Army colonel Harry Dobbs, who is out on undercover work trying to track down a serial rapist who has escaped from a military stockade in Germany. He confronts her and she is shocked that he seems to know exactly what has happened, but she sticks to her story of knowing nothing. Since the Colonel is less than forthcoming about his own mission, she also starts to worry about her absent husband possibly being implicated in something shady. Then a dead body is discovered on the beach where she dumped the rapist's body, and further complications ensue...

Cast

• Marlène Jobert as Mélancolie "Mellie" Mau
• Charles Bronson as Dobbs
• Annie Cordy as Juliette
• Corinne Marchand as Woman
• Jill Ireland as Nicole
• Jean Piat as M. Armand
• Marcel Pérès as Station Master
• Gabriele Tinti as Tony
• Ellen Bahl as Madeline Legauff
• Jean Gaven as Toussaint
• Marc Mazza as The Stranger (Mac Guffin)
• Marika Green as Hostess at Tania's

Awards

In 1970 the film won the Special David of the David di Donatello Awards. In 1971 it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, and for the Golden Laurel.

Soundtrack

"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 in the Rain".

External links

• Le Passager de la pluie at the Internet Movie Database
• Rider on the Rain at AllRovi