Miracle in the Rain

I cannot say enough nice things about this movie, but rather than write about the movie, I will write about my brief meeting with Van Johnson.

Back in 1988, I met Van Johnnson by accident in a restaurant in NYC. I don't know what made me go up to him, but I introduced myself and began a conversation with him.

While Van could have sent me away, he interrupted his meal and told me to sit down. I told him how much I enjoyed the movie and that it was my favorite. He was flattered that someone as young as me liked the movie and also confided that it was his favorite movie as well, going as far to show me the coin from that movie that he continues to wear around his neck. We both left the restaurant at the same time, shook hands and he said it was a pleasure speaking with me.

It was a very special moment for me. The warm and sensitive person he portrays in Miracle in the Rain is an understatement. Van Johnson is more wonderful in person.

"Miracle in the Rain" is the sort of movie that would make a stone cry. It's also the sort of movie that's unlikely to see the light of day again: a middle-aged, virgin heroine; a squeaky-clean, hands-off hero who woos with the line, "I'll love you till the cows come home all over the world," then goes off to fight a war with just one chaste kiss; unabashed appeals to sentimentalism and invocations of the most literal, unreconstructed religion...it's a movie that sets out to bring out the handkerchiefs and makes no apologies for it. I can't decide whether it's a movie to lift the spirit (because its final message is one of hope) or whether it's so unrealistic that it's a downer, because today's equivalent of the heroine is likely to say, "Yeah, I really would need a miracle to find a man like that. I might as well pack it in!" If you're the type that can smile at corn instead of sneering at it, see this movie. It's as sweet and tender a confection as Hollywood ever produced.

Miracle In The Rain is a good, but very strange film. You first start watching it and you think you're seeing a nice romantic film with a wartime setting. But it takes a very unexpected turn into the supernatural and in the end a miracle of sorts is actually performed. And right on the steps of New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Jane Wyman is a plain jane sort of girl whose life consists of going to work and then getting home to tend to her ailing mother Josephine Hutchinson. Years ago the man of the household, William Gargan, walked out on the family and left Hutchinson the cynical and sickly soul that she is. So when Jane meets soldier Van Johnson during wartime he proves almost too good to be true.

Their love is intense in the short time they have before Johnson ships out. After that the film turns, first tragic and then mystical.

Other members of the cast who aid and abet Johnson and Wyman are people like Fred Clark as Jane's boss at work, a rebound man from way back, Peggie Castle who is Clark's mistress on the job, Alan King and Barbara Nichols a soldier and his new bride who Johnson and Wyman meet in Central Park and making their big screen debuts are Eileen Heckart as Wyman's best friend from work and Arte Johnson who plays an office boy where the girls work. No fool he.

Warner Brothers shot this film in New York which is why Heckart and Johnson who were based in New York got to work in this. It would have been nice if we had some color, but the black and white cinematography was nice. No doubt that Francis Cardinal Spellman himself must have had script approval of the whole project in order to allow scenes inside St. Patrick's to be done.

Though dated somewhat Miracle In The Rain is still a fine piece of entertainment and its message about true love never dying is one for all generations.

Miracle in the Rain has just been screened here in the UK and I am so pleased that I recorded it as I intend to keep it along with my growing collection of classic movies from the forties and fifties and watch it again and again.

The performances of Jane Wyman and Van Johnson were very moving and the ending was magical and moved me to tears!

I was just a young girl when I saw this movie for the first time. It was so moving and so sad that I never forgot it. The acting may seem alittle corny in this day and age but the story is wonderful, and the cast was excellent. I lost count how many times I've watched it over the years, I finally own a copy of it although its on VHS it's nice to know I can watch it again whenever I want. Would be nice if it was released on DVD. This is also one of my favorite Van Johnson movies. If I could compare it to a modern day movie that would be "Message in a Bottle" with Kevin Costner. Although it didn't have a miraculous ending it was a story of finding love and losing it so suddenly. If you like tear-jerkers both of these movies would fit the bill.