What in the hell happened in
Coppola's education/learning curve from Finian's to this?
This movie is incredible. He and George Lucas totally messed up what should have been Fred Astaire's greatest finale performance and Petula Clark's phenomenal big screen introduction to America film after her hugely successful British film career prior to 'Downtown'.
What a difference a year makes!
(a) Finian's Rainbow was a studio picture, with a million studio people helicoptering over FFC. The Rain People, a small independent movie.
(b) They were a year older and a year more experienced. When we are young, we are unaware of just how much we progress in a short span of time. Only decades later do we see the varying slope of our learning curve vs. time.
I just saw both movies back-to-back and totally disagree.
For one thing, "Finian's Rainbow" wasn't a 'disaster.' Maybe it didn't perform at the box office as producers wanted, but that doesn't make it a bad movie. If a 'disaster' is defined as a film that isn't a success at the box office then "The Rain People" is a disaster as well since few people paid it any mind until a few years later when Coppola's next film" became a hit, "The Godfather." "The Rain People" then garnered a cult following, but so has "Finian's Rainbow" in the decades since its release.
Secondly, the two films are too different to compare. One is an energetic musical with a large cast based on a Broadway hit from two decades earlier while the other is Coppola's mundane and melancholy arthouse road movie with a small cast.
"Finian's Rainbow" is fun, but not shallow, whereas "The Rain People" isn't shallow either, but it's the furthest thing from fun. Actually, it's broodingly dull, yet not without interest.
I appreciate "The Rain People" for what it is and has to offer, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's some cinematic masterpiece compared to "Finian's Rainbow."