Hatful Of Rain

[sfpcc1]

I just finished A Hatful Of Rain. The movie was harrowing and explicit for it's time. I have one question. Where does the title come from? I know it was based on a play by Michael Gazzo. Maybe it came from a line in the play that was cut out of the movie. Could a hatful of rain be a metaphor for heroin?

[FredCDobbs]

I haven't seen the movie in a few years, but if I recall correctly, it comes from a line in the movie.... something about being poor and broke and standing around in the rain and getting nothing but a hat full of rain.

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The Free Dictionary on the internet says it means a lot of something, such as a bag full, a cart full, a box full, a barrel full.

 

Seems to me it should have been spelled Hat Full.

 

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By the way, this film was a Code Breaker, one of the first few films in the 1950s that was about drug addiction, which had been forbidden by the 1934 movie Code.

 

On the Waterfront broke the Code against cursing, when Brando told the priest to Go to ****.

 

Also, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) broke the Code rule about "no films about bad preachers".

 

Several 1950s films broke several of the main Code rules, in early attempts to break the Code completely.

[FredCDobbs]

Here, see this:

 

In one revealing scene, John Pope, Sr., laughingly recalls that years earlier, on a rainy day, the young Johnny had taken his hat out while working in a field. Having been told that hard work led to financial rewards, Johnny would do a little work and then he would look for money in his pocket. After several failed attempts at finding money, a disheartened Johnny put his water-filled hat back on and got all wet. A hatful of rain was all he got for his hard day?s work. Things obviously didn?t get much better for Johnny when he became an adult.

 

 

http://www.altfg.com/blog/film-reviews/hatful-of-rain-fred-zinnemann-franciosa/

[DownGoesFrazier]

The line starts with, "Poor Johnny (referring to the Don Murray character)..................and all he got was a hatful of rain".

[sfpcc1]

I guess I missed the line