The greatest movie ever made..!

the audience applauded

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I saw A Hatful of Rain and Bigger Than Life in the same evening, because they seemed to make the perfect double feature as they both dealt with addictions. (They had been on my short list of movies to see for a while.) I watched A Hatful of Rain first. It features good actors, who give good, thoughtful performances, but the film, on the whole, felt a little too stagy and like it was trying too hard to be self-important and/or preachy with its family dynamics. While it's rather respectful and tender in depicting Don Murray's morphine addiction and Eva Marie Saint's predicament in loving someone she can't altogether help, you begin to tire of its downbeat feel. Tony Franciosa is good as his brother who is tired of helping him out every single time and, at the same time, finds himself attracted to his wife. One may say that comparing this film to Bigger Than Life is not fair to this one, as I found it to be far superior to this, but, if you only have two hours to spare, watch Bigger Than Life first. Then, five minutes into this, you will see a world of difference, as A Hatful of Rain tries to be bigger than life.

"A Hatful of Rain" is a film indicative of the realism that had crept into films in the 1950s. The Production Code had gradually relaxed and films dealing with more adult topics were becoming more and more available. Now this is NOT saying the films were dirty or salacious--they just dealt with some of the realities of the pitfalls of modern life. Gangs, drugs and even sexual abuse were now possible topics in films--provided they were presented in a reasonably restrained manner. In this climate, a film like this one is possible--back in the 1940s it simply never could have been made.The film originally was a Broadway play and it depicts the effects of morphine addiction on a Korean War vet (Don Murray). Instead of admitting his problem, Murray gets pulled into the seedy underworld--as he's heavily in debt to a scum-bag pusher (Henry Silva) and it appears as if he has no choice but steal to support this habit. In the meantime, his patient wife (Eva Marie Saint) is lonely and assumes that her husband is cheating on her--after all, he's distant and often gone at night. Living with them is Murray's brother (Anthony Franciosa)--and this creates some sexual tension and an interesting dynamic considering how lonely his sister-in-law is and that Franciosa knows his brother's secret. Add to that the tough as nails father (Lloyd Nolan) who comes to visit and you've got the ingredients for some fireworks. The family's problems extend well beyond the chemical dependency--and perhaps the drugs in some way relate to all this dysfunction. How all this is sorted out is for you to see for yourself in this excellent drama.Don Murray is hardly a household name, but he was very good in this role because he seems a lot like an ordinary guy--something that really helps in a film like this. A big-name star would have been all wrong for this role as a poor working stiff. As for the rest of the cast, they are all excellent as well. Saint is a lot like other characters she's played--such as in "On the Waterfront" and Franciosa received an Oscar nomination for his performance as the brother living with them.By the way, although the main focus is on Murray, I think the relationship between the scapegoated brother (Franciosa) and the irresponsible father is probably the most interesting one in the picture. There sure is a lot going on here.Overall, an extremely well made movie that it filled with interesting family dynamics. In fact, there's so much to see here--the co-dependent wife, the enabling brother, the emotionally abusive and neglectful father...all which is fascinating and worth your time. Exceptional.

This is one of the first movies I saw about addiction and it is one of the best I have seen. Don Murray was fantastic as a addict and his brother played the part of the family saver well to. I have searched to get a print of this movie without success. this shows the seedy side of addiction. It also showed the impact a family member who is addicted to something has on his family in this case his wife thought there was another woman. There was the strong family feeling from this movie and the father was a overbearing perfectionist that really loved his family but had trouble showing it to both brothers which hurt the other brother big-time.

I must have been all of 8 years old when I seen this movie and I only remembered bits and pieces of it, but I do remember Hatful of Rain being a good movie. But, I must say after reading the comments listed online it put the movie fresh in my memory and all I would like to say "WHERE'S THE VIDEO", this is a great movie and no one has it on video or DVD. Shame, Shame, Shame.Also, I would like to ask Author 031391 from Brewster, NY, Why don't you make copies of the VHS you have and put me down as the first person to receive a copy. It's nice to share.ladye515@aol.com