Very Cool!!!

Sadly Over-hyped

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Bus passenger Marc Mazza lands in a Southern French town/village and immediately notices local girl Marlène Jobert (Mel). He does more than notice her……and she takes revenge. Mysterious Charles Bronson turns up soon afterwards and is interested in the whereabouts of this mysterious passenger along with a bag that he was carrying. He cosies up to Jobert and tries to get her to confess the truth as to what has happened but she is wise to the game he is playing even if she doesn't fully understand it. Neither do we. Who is Bronson and what does he want? The film has two very different sections. The beginning segment grips us with suspense and a feeling of dread that plays against a background of rainfall. Then Bronson appears and things get mysterious but also slightly comic and the film exudes a James Bond-like atmosphere. The cast are good, especially Annie Cordy (Juliette) in the mother role. You are definitely convinced that there is a lot more to her character. She is very strong. However, at the film's heart we have Jobert and Bronson and Jobert is the better actor. Bronson is whatever Bronson does – cruising through the film throwing in some comedy here and there. It's an entertaining film with a satisfying conclusion and leaves you on the upbeat. It could have been very different given the final section as things unravel.

I saw this movie two or three times in the theater in 1971, when I was ten years old. My brother was obsessed by the movie and he used to take me. Now, after 38 years I saw it again on DVD, and it evoked some memories! I had still remembered since then some of the memorable scenes, like opening the fist of the rapist's body to find the button, and Charles Bronson giving Marlene Jobert the button. It is a great movie. One of the few earliest thriller/romance of its type (post-Hitchcock) to come out. The chemistry between Charles Bronson and Marlene Jobert is great, and I liked the walnut-throwing metaphor. It is a classic!

"Rider on the Rain" is a slowly-paced and occasionally confusing mystery from French director René Clément with disappointing passages but a shrewd sense of time and place, and a keen eye for detail. Plot involves a young woman who has killed her rapist and disposed of the body, later meeting a shifty stranger who somehow knows her secret. Vividly-rendered film stays in the mind, with pungent dialogue and incredible, moody atmospherics, though the story does take a few wrong turns. If you can get passed this, you'll find an exceptional, arty thriller, one with a terrific finale. Good cast headed by Charles Bronson, in one of his best early roles. **1/2 from ****

The film that prompted Jim Morrison to write Riders on the Storm - and his plural indicates what this film is about: a cop and a killer both arriving with the rain. Marlene Jobert is unforgettable as the woman central to the film but incidental to the cat and mouse game the men are playing.Sebastien Japrisot who wrote the screenplay is one of the great French mystery writers - Compartiment Tueurs (The 10.30 From Marseilles)La dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil - that's The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun to those in California who want to criticize French films without speaking French. Clement is one of the great French directors. His En Plein Soleil (Purple Noon), based on the work of another great mystery writer, Patricia Highsmith,is a masterpiece, largely because of his stunning young star, Alain Delon. This film is the grainy, rain-driven counterpoint to that sundrenched piece, both essentially downbeat and redolent of their period. Jim liked it, anyway.