Rain or Shine

With the box office success of Ladies of Leisure (1930), a Barbara Stanwyck melodrama, director Frank Capra was finally deemed important enough by Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohn to have his name listed on movie marquees above the title of his new picture. At the time, Capra, who already had fifteen feature films to his credit, had boasted to a friend that he could make an entertaining film out of the phone book and, for his next feature, Rain or Shine (1930), he proved beyond a doubt that he could work wonders with the skimpiest of storylines. Based on a 1928 hit Broadway musical of the same name by James Gleason and Maurice Marks, Rain or Shine was the story of a circus manager trying to make a success of his traveling show despite bad weather, internal saboteurs, poor business and creditors. At first Cohn had rejected the idea telling Capra, "I can't spend that kind of dough. Musical comedies cost a fortune to produce!" Cohn, however, changed his opinion when the director told him he'd throw out the musical numbers because he wanted to buy Rain or Shine for different reasons. "We're buying Joe Cook," Capra told him. "He's mad, Harry. He's unique - the darling of the literati, of the Algonquin Round Table! Percy Hammond calls Cook 'the funniest man in America'; Brooks Atkinson says he's 'one of the greatest comedians of our times!' And we're buying two other great comedians in Rain or Shine - Tom Howard and Dave Chasen. Rain or Shine will cost us peanuts, Harry. I'll shoot it all in a small two-ring circus tent. No other sets. No music, no chorus dames, no Busby Berkeley, no nothing. Just wild comedy." After Cohn agreed to the purchase, Capra hired Jo Swerling and Dorothy Howell to rewrite Rain or Shine for the screen, removing all the musical numbers as promised and expanding a romantic subplot in which the circus owner, Mary Rainey (Joan Peers), hopes to marry Bud Conway (William Collier, Jr.), a new employee whose wealthy, class-conscious parents disapprove of his current vocation. The real focus of the film though is "Smiley" Johnson (Joe Cook), the fast-talking manager of the Greater John T. Rainey Circus and his never-ending schemes and hustles to keep the circus operational and true to its promise to offer two shows a day, rain or shine. Dalton (Alan Roscoe), the ringmaster, proves to be the villain of the piece, working secretly to foil Smiley's efforts. Meanwhile, a befuddled investor, Amos K. Shrewsbury (Tom Howard) and Dave (Dave Chasen), a food vendor and roustabout, provide comic relief. Some of Rain or Shine was filmed at the Burbank, California ranch of James J. Jeffries, a former world heavyweight boxing champion who also has a cameo in the film. Acts and members of the A. W. Copeland Circus were featured as part of the supporting cast and some of the incidental and background music from the Broadway score by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen was reused for the film. Seen today, Rain or Shine is a curiosity and not typical of the Frank Capra films that would follow. More than anything it is truly a showcase for Joe Cook's unique vaudeville talents and motormouth character and at times the humor is as raucous and unruly as the early Marx Brothers comedies with an emphasis on zany dialogue and wordplay. Yet you can see glimpses of Capra's emerging populist viewpoint that would flower in Platinum Blonde (1931) and American Madness (1932). In his biography, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success, Joseph McBride wrote that "Rain or Shine gives mixed political signals, probably because of the clash of Capra's fundamentally conservative attitudes with more liberal ideas that were in the air at the time. The precarious financial state of the circus echoes the state of the country, and Cook's Smiley, the indefatigable optimist, can be seen as a Franklin Roosevelt precursor, galvanizing the demoralized troupe with his energy and courage. His black organist, Nero (Clarence Muse), plays an instrumental version of "Happy Days Are Here Again," the Broadway show's pep tune that FDR would adopt as his theme song in the 1932 presidential campaign." Easily the most memorable sequence in the film is the fiery climax when the angry circus patrons cause a riot which starts a blaze that eventually consumes the big top and reduces it to ash. Sound technician Edward Bernds later said, "Working with Frank Capra, I soon realized what a wealth of guts and daring he had! In Rain or Shine, for instance, he very casually burned down an entire circus! It was a one-shot thing. He just put enough cameras on to cover everything he wanted and he burned the whole thing down. He shot it with, as I recall, about a dozen cameras. He had guts and originality!" Rain or Shine proved to be a modest success at the box office and some critics even stated that Capra had improved upon the original Broadway show, making it even funnier. The Variety reviewer wrote, "A circus story with plenty of comedy, much sightlines, a thrill or so and a real big top fire for the finale make Columbia's Rain or Shine with Joe Cook a first run candidate. It's a much better than average circus picture....Joe Cook's ready reasons for anything get a laugh here whenever used, as does Cook's mannerisms and his general work...Toward the finish the story does go a little ragged and without a smooth finish, but that doesn't injure the whole impression." Capra would move on next to Dirigible (1931), an action-adventure picture with a love triangle, but Joe Cook, the real star of Rain or Shine, never quite clicked with movie audiences like he did with theatergoers. A veteran circus performer, he made a handful of comedy shorts and features after the Capra film but was struck down by Parkinson's disease at an early age and was forced to retire from show business in the early forties (he died in 1959). As for Dave Chasen, who had appeared in numerous vaudeville shows with Cook and a few comedy shorts, he is more famous today as the restaurant owner who opened Chasen's in Hollywood in 1936. Famous for his chili, which was so loved by Elizabeth Taylor that several orders of it were flown to Rome for her during the making of Cleopatra (1963), the restaurant was a mainstay for years and popular with such celebrities and dignitaries as Frank Sinatra, Groucho Marx, Alfred Hitchcock and President Ronald Reagan. Chasen's was located at 9039 Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles and closed down in 1995. Producers: A Frank R. Capra Production, Harry Cohn Director: Frank R. Capra Screenplay: Jo Swerling (dialogue and continuity); Dorothy Howell (dialogue and continuity); James Gleason and Maurice Marks (book) Cinematography: Joseph Walker Art Direction: Harrison Wiley (uncredited) Film Editing: Maurice Wright Cast: Joe Cook (Smiley Johnson), Louise Fazenda (Frankie - 'The Princess'), Joan Peers (Mary Rainey), William Collier, Jr. (Bud Conway), Tom Howard (Amos K. Shrewsberry), Dave Chasen (Dave), Alan Roscoe (Dalton - the Ringmaster), Adolph Milar (Foltz - the Lion Tamer), Clarence Muse (Nero), Nella Walker (Mrs. Conway), Edward Martindale (Mr. Conway), Nora Lane (Grace Conway), Tyrrell Davis (Lord Hugo Gwynne). BW-89m. by Jeff Stafford SOURCES Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success by Joseph McBride (St. Martin's Griffin) The Name Above the Title by Frank Capra (Da Capo Press) The Films of Frank Capra by Victor Scherle, William Turner, & William O. Douglas (Citadel) www.afi.com IMDB