Rainwear in Films

Before 1950

1920

This part-technicolor variety show included a "Singin' in the Rain" sequence that featured one of the earliest appearances of plastic macs in the cinema. (T) It was the same song that gave its name to the celebrated 1952 movie featuring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds.

Featured in Rainy Day Cinema.

1930

La Petite Lise, Jean Grémillon,France, 1930

Based on the play by Eugene O'Neill, starring Greta Garbo and Charles Bickford.The beautiful Garbo wears an oilskin slicker.

Featured in Rainy Day Cinema.

Actors include: Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford

The old Joan Crawford, Walter Huston version of the movie of the much filmed Somerset Maugham story. A series of wet shiny cape shots, happy singing marines & other male characters, then neatly dressed in rubberised cotton (it seems) genteel ladies. "Wait, I'll get my coat", says Sadie Thompson, seizing a light coloured mac from hook by door, flapping it extravagantly. She goes to run out, but stops, holding her mac, during a long dialogue with the reforming preacher.
Later she is supposed to be coming back in from the rain, but evidently Crawford chickened out. When she appears inside the house she is quite dry, and the figure seen from the back must have been a stand-in.
Sadie Thompson and Miss Sadie Thompson are other versions.

Actors include: Joan Crawford.

The Mask of Fu Manchu,
Charles Brabin,
USA, 1932

This is a remarkable film with its chronic over-acting, OTT make-up, frenetic pacing, weak dialogue, and incredibly sexual undertones and racial overtones. (The Hays Code was originally introduced in 1930, but the studios ignored it until 1934, when it decided to grow some teeth.) Somehow it captures the spirit of Fu Manchu better than all the many other films about him. Here Boris Karloff plays Fu Manchu. (In the books the name is given as "Fu-Manchu", which in reality is apparently a title meaning "Warlike Manchu" rather than a true surname) and Myrna Loy plays his sultry daughter, Fah Lo See. (Again in the books it is given as "Fah Lo Suee", a childhood term of endearment, though in other films she has been blatantly re-named Ling Moy or Lin Tang for no good reason.) Lewis Stone plays Nayland Smith, his nemesis.
In the latter part of the film, Karen Morley as Sheila Barton and Jean Hersholt as Professor Von Berg are briefly seen wearing thick raincoats.
The characters were created by Sax Rohmer (pseudonym of a London crime journalist, Arthur Ward) in 1913. Quite why he always portrayed the Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Indian, Persian, Turkish and Egyptians as inherently evil and untrustworthy has never been made clear. (He didn't have a much better opinion of the Greeks, either.)

Note - Charles Brabin became Director only after King Vidor was sacked! (Dave D)

Actors include: Boris Karloff, Karen Morley, Jean Hersholt, Myrna Loy, Lewis Stone.

Rich and Strange, Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 1932

Quite an oddity, this. It stars Henry Kendall, Joan Barry and Percy Marmont. At the start of the film, we see office workers leaving work during a deluge. Henry Kendall find himself in close proximity to an attractive girl on the tube. Would you try to read your newspaper in this situation? (Dave D)

Sometimes listed as released in 1931.

Actors include: Henry Kendall, Joan Barry and Percy Marmont.

Towards the end of this film Clara Bow wears a long shiny black plastic raincoat. (Rainy Brian)

Actors include: Clara Bow.

King Kong, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, USA, 1933

Fay Wray while sailing on board the ship to Skull Island is leaning of the railing of the ship which is in a fog bank. She has on a plastic raincoat. You have to look closely as the scene is not that long. But she is wearing a plastic raincoat! (PVC)

Of Human Bondage, John Cromwell, USA, 1934

This stars Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne and Edmund Gwenn. Adapted from a book by Compton Mackenzie, the film is not as good as should have been. The chief point of interest is that Sylvia (Hepburn) spends much of the film disguised as a boy and calling herself Sylvester, because her fraudster father, Henry Scarlett (Gwenn), is evading the police. She becomes involved with Jimmy Monkley (Grant), a jewel thief.
There is a generous scene in which Sylvia wears a thick (probably yellow) plastic raincoat. Jimmy wears a dark raincoat. (Domino)

A mac-attired Maureen O'Sullivan attempts to foil the shenanigans of a naughty English bishop played by Edmund Gwenn. (T)

Featured in Rainy Day Cinema.

Gold Diggers of Nineteen Thirty Seven, Lloyd Bacon, USA, 1936

On a rainy day two would-be secretaries turn up together for an interview, both wearing long transparent plastic taincoats. (Rainy Brian)

Video clip on Rainwear Central.

This was Fritz Lang's second American film. It stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney. Fonda as Eddie Taylor, an ex-convict, and Sidney as Joan Graham, his girlfirend, are just superb. Lang's direction is masterly, especially in the rain-soaked street scene. Joan wears a trench coat in some scenes. (Dave D)

This is a loose adaptation of 'The Maltese Falcon' starring William Warren and Bette Davis. The Gutman character (played by Sidney Greenstreet in the Bogart film) is here transmogrified into Madame Barabbas (Alison Skipworth). In one scene Bette Davis wears a cape and Alison Skipworth causes a baggy raincoat to bulge! (Dave D)

Interns Can't Take Money, Alfred Santell, USA, 1937.

In the middle of the movie, the main character (Barbara Stanwyck) wears a long dark plastic raincoat, walking out into the heavy rain. Then she walks into an apartement still keeping on her wet coat. (PEC)

Maxine Doyle, playing reporter Jean Norman, wears a transparent raincoat in the first of the 12 x 20mins (approx) chapters. (Rainy Brian)

Windjammer, Ewing Scott, USA, 1937

Maureen O'Sullivan wears a translucent hooded rain cape, approximately between minutes 57 and 61 of the film. Furthermore several nurses are shown in a short scene wearing the same kind of cape. (Toni)

The Green Cockatoo, William Cameron Menzies, UK, 1937

Features Judy Garland with a chorus of dancers garbed in transparent plastic tuxedos. Unfortunately, this scene was eventually deleted from the film. (Rainman)

Love of a Stranger, Rowland V. Lee, UK, 1937

On Such A Night, E.A. Dupont with Karen Morley and Milli Monti, USA, 1937

Flood waters maroon a houseful of people including a Broadway star, her husband - falsely accused of murder, and the real killer. (T)

Featured in Rainy Day Cinema.

Sidewalks of London, Tim Whelan, UK, 1938

In one scene a number of ladies wear plastic raincoats for their performance on stage. (PVC)

Plastic rainwear doesn't appear in many scenes, but when it does ... (Rainy Brian)

Video clip on YouTube.

aka St Martin's Lane

At the end of movie: heavy rainstorm, an electric maintenance worker must repair power line. His wife is watching him in the pouring rain, dressed in a rubber oilskin raincoat and rainhat. The rain water is running down in streams on her coat. She calls for help and another person in rubber raincoat joins.
(PEC)

At the end of the movie (last ten minutes) actress Ginette Leclerc wears a raincoat in "pied de poule" rubberised cotton with a black collar. (GMC)

Le Quai Des Brumes, Marcel Carne, 1938

A pale and gaunt Michele Morgan, resplendent in a transparent plastic mac, haunts the fog-shrouded docks and dimly-lit cafes of Le Havre. She attracts the attention of Jean Gabin with whom she shares the misty ambience of writer Jacques Prevert's romantically pessimistic world. (T)

Featured in Rainy Day Cinema.

Abus de Confiance, Henri Decoin, France, 1938

The young Daniele Darrieux wears a shiny black rubber slicker nearly all the time. (Pierre)

PM alerts me to a misleading second entry for this film which used to be above, corrects the spelling (Danielle Darrieux) and points out that she wears her black rubber mackintosh in the first half of the film only. He also supplies the photos and gives this link for another. Thanks!

Ask a Policeman, Marcel Varnel, UK, 1938

Glennis Lorimer plays the girlfriend of a policeman. She arrives one wet stormy night at the police station wearing a rubberlined mackintosh. The garment has a chequered pattern and in a later scene outside can be seen to have also a shoulder cape. (Bob)

La Bete Humaine, Jean Renoir, France, 1938

Kitty und die Weltkonferenz, Helmut Käutne, Germany, 1939

Thanks to W.K. for pics.

aka Kitty and the World Conference.

There is a scene in which some of the characters are arriving at a house in the rain, and they all wear raincoats and umbrellas. It is just a very brief shot however. Also another scene in a swamp where the lady wears big knee-high black shiny pull-on boots. There is a shot that is fairly long of them walking through the swamp, and when the lady starts to sink in the mud - great views of her boots. (Michael D)
aka The Rules Of The Game.

1940

Foreign Correspondent, Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1940

Foreign Correspondent stars Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall and George Sanders. It concerns Johnny Jones, a crime reporter for the Daily Globe, who is renamed Huntley Haverstock and sent to Europe as a foreign correspondent (a subject he knows nothing about) shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In London he meets Carol Fisher (Day) and her father, Stephen Fisher (Marshall), the head of the Peace Movement. He also meets Van Meer (Albert Basserman), a Dutch Minister, who is 'the key to the whole European situation'. Moving to Amsterdam, he witnesses Van Meer's assassination in the rain. He gives chase to the assassin, assisted by Carol and Scott ffolliott (Sanders), who explains that one of his ancestors was beheaded by Henry VIII and the capital F of his surname was dropped in commemoration! They lose the assassin's car by some windmills, but Johnny notices that the sails of one of the windmills was for a time turning against the wind. Sending Carol and Scott to bring the police, he investigates alone and gets a big surprise.
This was the film that really established Hitchcock as a major auteur. It is chock-full of his trademark touches. Herbert Marshall is superb as the archetypal Hitchcock villain; smooth, charming, downright likeable, which makes him all the more dangerous. The assassination sequence, with its chase through the sea of umbrellas, is second to none, as is the plane crash into the sea, with its cockpit view of the plane hitting the water. If you don't know how Hitchcock achieved this, it is worth reading up. The only CGI available here was consummate genius invention.
In Holland, Johnny wears his trenchcoat. There is a lot of rainwear in the crowd, but this is mostly only apparent in stills, as the action is very fast-moving. Note the lady on the left of the first pic in the hooded shiny black cape. Later inside the windmill, we have the surely unique situation where Johnny's raincoat nearly gets him killed, as it gets caught up in the grindstone mechanism. (Dave D)

Strange Cargo, Frank Borzage, USA, 1940

Heavy rainfall. The actress (Joan Crawford) wearing a long dark oilskin or rubber raincoat inside the house. Later in the scene she is walking out into the pouring rain. (Peter E)

Women in War, John H. Auer, USA, 1940

Wendy Barrie (a well-known English actress who went to the USA in the late 1930's and notoriously became the mistress of New York gangster, Bugsy Siegel) stars as a young woman who decides to go to England to become a war nurse. Her relationship to the very strict Matron (Elsie Janis) is closer than she thinks. Awful film, but the nurses do wear their uniform raincoats. (Dave D)

Max de Winter (Laurence Olivier) makes his new wife (Joan Fontaine) wear a mackintosh for a walk to the lake. A servant is told to fetch one which used to belong to Rebecca. Reluctantly Mrs de Winter puts it on and wears it as they walk through the estate and she encounters for the first time something of its dark secret. (H)

Eric adds: I wonder if the golden age of the mackintosh didn't start with this film.

In third minute of this short film about the use of chemicals, to boost the war effort, which lasts just over nine minutes, we see a lady about to go out with her boyfriend. It is raining. He knows this already and is wearing a trench coat, but she returns to her wardrobe and takes a rolled up transparent plastic cape from the top shelf. She unrolls it, puts it on and as they step out side she buttons it up, pulls the hood up and off they go!

Thanks to Prelinger Archives and The Internet Archive

(Rainy Brian)

This film is an adaptation of Geoffrey Household's 1939 novel, "Rogue Male". At the start of the film, set just before the start of World Wat II, Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) comes within a whisker of assassinating Hitler at Berchtesgaden, when he is spotted by a Nazi guard and arrested. When questioned by Quive-Smith of the Gestapo (George Sanders), a German with an English background, he insists that he had not actiually meant to kill Hitler, it was merely a 'sporting stalk'. He maintains this line, even after being subjected to a more brutal interrogation, and refuses to sign a document saying that he was sent to assassinate Hitler by the British Government. It is decided that he should 'accidentally' fall from a great height, but he escapes and with the help of a cabin boy (a young Roddy McDowall) makes his way back to England. Here he is pursued by Nazi agents led by 'Mr. Jones' (John Carradine). Thorndike is helped to evade them by a young woman named Jerry (Joan Bennett).

Jerry is obviously meant to be a prostitute, but as the Hays Offiice always insisted that such things should not be stated, she is never referred to as such. Somewhat reluctantly, she eventually has to take her leave of him. She returns to her flat, only to find Quive-Smith, 'Jones' and a couple of Nazi thugs waiting for her. We are not shown her fate, but later, when Quive-Smith catches up with Thorndike, who has holed up in a cave (in the book, it's a hole he has dug in the ground, rather like an animal trap) we learn that she 'died under questioning' without betraying his whereabouts. Quive-Smith presents Thorndike with her beret as proof of this. Big mistake on his part.
Jerry wears a much-used mac in most of her scenes. Joan Bennett plays her with a decidedly dodgy Cockney accent. Cor lumme, missus, wot a right ol' manglin' she gives it! (Dave D)

So Ends Our Night, John Cromwell, USA, 1941

Margaret Sullavan wears a classic trench coat, belted, with a classic beret on her head: a classic image of the film noir of the forties.

The film was only released in Bruxelles on the 4th April 1948 due to a boycott of American movies during World War II.

Several styles of trenchcoats are featured in films, ranging from the film noir of the 1940's to recent comedies like Comme t'y es Belles, from the first sophisticated look pioneered by Margaret Sullavan, to the deconstructed look of Charlotte Gainsbourg, wearing her trench casually over jeans.

Out in dvd in 2006.

(André)

For the pics thanks to Artem.

In this surprisingly decent Arthur Askey film, set largely in a Scottish lighthouse during the war, a boat load of stranded women arrives and one of them frequently wears what is assumed to be a yellow oilskin in a few scenes. (Rainy Brian)

Starred Veronica Lake and Robert Preston and gave a first major role to Alan Ladd: closely based on a Graham Greene novel, "A Gun for Sale".

Ellen Graham (Lake) is a sultry night-club-singer-cum-conjuror who takes a job offered by Willard Gates (Laird Cregar) who is actually a fifth-columnist manufacturing poison gas. Lieutenant Michael Crane (Preston) is a cop who, quite understandably, is rather smitten with Ellen. Raven (Ladd) is a psychopathic gunman, who is hired by Gates to carry out an assassination. After succeeding in this he becomes expendable. Eventually the trench-coated Raven gets holed up with Ellen. Later, we see Ellen wearing his trench-coat. (I was going to say 'leaving Alan Ladd to rely on a coating of Cuprinol', but that would be most unfair. His performance in this film is nothing short of brilliant, which makes it all the more sad that in his subsequent roles his acting was usually weak and wooden, and he relied on his charismatic good looks to carry him.) (Dave D)

Someone kindly added: Yes, a very good film, but the best part for me is not Veronika Lake's wearing Ladd's coat It looks so much better on her I wonder if it was the same coat? but rather her appearance at "Gates" night club where she auditions [minutes 38:30 - 40:12 on my CDV version] wearing shiny waders and a shiny blouse as she sings and dances. She did get the job but events prevented the performance.

This is a musical starring Betty Grable and John Payne. Also featured are Harry James and his Music Makers (James and Grable married a year later) and Carmen Miranda (who for once doesn't have a bucketful of fruit on her head!).The story concerns Vicky Lane who breaks off her engagement to and stage partnership with Dan Christy, and takes up again with her previous partner (Cesar Romero). Dan follows them to the Canadian Roackies and woos her back. Early in the film, Vicky and Dan perform a number called "Run Little Raindrop, Run'" in their Broadway show, in which a rainstorm is simulated on stage. For this, Vicky wears a white satin raincoat with a hemline just above the knee and little white boots to match. She wears the hood up, but it is pinned well back so as not to obscure her hair. This is purely a stage costume and does not reflect the streetwear of the time. Dan and the men in the chorus wear proofed cotton raincoats. The girls in the chorus wear all wear transparent plastic macs with the hoods up. After the number, while Vicky and Dan are arguing, three of the girls, still wearing their macs, can be seen at the edge of the screen walking up a staircase to the dressing rooms. As the last girl mounts the stairs, Vicky's dresser (Charlotte Greenwood) pinches the back of her leg, causing her to utter a very audible "Oh!". There seems to be no reason for this. Was there an off-screen feud perhaps? (Dave D)

American wartime espionage drama starring Virginia Bruce. Great for 40's fashion throughout, but in one scene the heroine is walking in the rain wearing a typical 1940's cut semi-transparent P.V.C. knee-length hooded mac. (ME)

Rather a good little thriller which sees Joseph Cotten embroiled in intrigue with the Head of the Turkish Secret Police, Colonel Haki (Orson Welles). Exotic dancer, Josette (Dolores Del Rio) wears a nicely- cut trenchcoat (sans epaulettes) in several sequences. There's an exciting window ledge shoot-out in driving rain at the climax. The assassin, Banat, (Jack Moss) earlier demonstrates how not to eat a water biscuit with your soup!

Note that Orson Welles played an uncredited part in the Direction

(Dave D).

Joan of Paris, Robert Stevenson, USA, 1942

Hangmen Also Die, Fritz Lang, USA, 1943

Actress Anna Lee wears a classic trench coat in this World War II spy story. (André)

The True Story of Lilli Marlene, Humphrey Jennings, UK, 1943

In the Meantime Darling, Otto Preminger, USA, 1944

An obscure and extraordinary 'film noir' flick where the heroine (the lovely Ella Raines) has an extensive scene searching for witnesses who can clear her boss (whom she loves) of murder. Walking the rain-soaked streets and elevated train platforms, she wears a lovely transparent plastic raincoat. Lots of opportunities for backlit views of her in the raincoat. (Milo and WK)

Mademoiselle X, Pierre Billon, France, 1945

Brief Encounter, David Lean, UK, 1945

There is a sequence in this film where Laura (Celia Johnson) wears a mac, buttoned and belted, when she meets Alec (Trevor Howard). Is there not a bit where she says, "I love raincoats! There's something so terribly, terribly exhilarating about the way they're so impervious to precipitation."? No? Well, there ought to be! (Dave D)

Spellbound, Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1945

Farewell My Lovely, Edward Dmytryk, USA, 1945

Scarlet Street, Fritz Lang, USA, 1945

My Name is Julia Ross, Joseph H. Lewis, USA, 1945

aka Back Streets of Paris

Here we see an older lady wearing a white semi-transparent plastic raincoat and also another lady wearing a showerproof trenchcoat. (Rainy Brian)

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Lewis Milestone, USA, 1946         

This stars Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Kirk Douglas (his first film) and Lizabeth Scott. Barbara Stanwyck plays the adult Martha Ivers, a very rich woman who owns most of Iverstown. She is married to Walter O'Neill, the local DA (Kirk Douglas), who has a drink problem. In an introductory sequence, we are shown that when a teenager, Martha is responsible for killing her aunt/guardian (played by Judith Anderson) and Walter witnesses the scene. His father organises a cover-up and an intruder is blamed. Later an innocent man is hanged for her murder. There was, in fact, an intruder in the house - Martha's undesirable friend Sam Masterson, but he leaves Iverstown on a freight train and never sees the murder. Years later, Sam (now played by Van Heflin) finds himself in Iverstown once more. He meets and tries to help Toni (Lizabeth Scott) who is being forced to leave town. Martha and Walter mistakenly think that Sam is out to blackmail them and all sorts of ramifications ensue.

Toni wears a raincoat in several scenes.  (Dave D)

This film stars the Lump of Wood (aka the Ladd himself) and Veronica Lake. The lovely Veronica wears a stylish white raincoat in one scene. (Dave D)

This is an obscure 'B' picture, in which Janis Paige plays a singer torn between gangster, Zachary Scott, and newspaper columnist, Dane Clark. The only highlight of the film is Janis wearing a fetching trenchcoat with wooden buttons. (Dave D)

Till the Clouds Roll By, Richard Whorf, USA, 1946

Down to Earth, Alexander Hall, USA, 1947

aka I Became a Criminal in US

In two brief scenes halfway through the film a lady of the night wears a shiny white raincoat, similar to the one seen in It always rains on Sunday made in the same year. Also in between these scenes there appears to be a transparent raincoat hanging up in Sally Grays’ flat, but the film print is too dark to be certain. (Rainy Brian)

Mai Zetterling's traditional tough black rainwear sees her through an escape with her lover (played by David Farrar) through worn-torn Europe, and a bruising encounter with his family circle, uncomprehending and hostile.Her foreign attire announces to them her alien identity, but it also offers an image of steadfast resilience in this powerful post-WW2 movie, directed by the undersung Basil Dearden.

Another picture, showing Zetterling and Farrar escaping inclement weather this time, by ducking into the post-WW2 cinema itself, is shown in Rainy Day Cinema.(T)

The Woman on the Beach, Jean Renoir, USA, 1947

The Two Mrs Carrolls, Peter Godfrey, USA, 1947

Artist Geoffrey Carroll (Humphrey Bogart) is a dab hand at fixing a glass of hot milk for his second wife, Sally (Barbara Stanwyck) - as he was for his first! His young daughter (Ann Carter) tries to outdo Bogie a trenchcoat. No chance!
(Dave D)

It always Rains on Sunday, Robert Hamer, UK, 1947

Claret writes: "The heroine here wears a white/cream satin rubber mac in one scene after another "

- But does she? There is interest in this film, but the white/cream satin rubber mac escapes me ( - as it does RB) LE

Another contributor writes to confirm:

I have seen It Never Rains on a Sunday several times and the two girls are wearing plastic, not rubber, macks.

As it happens, you've missed the woman in the heavy single textured rubber lined mack. She appears briefly in the film and is the wife of a shopkeeper who is having an affair. She appears two or three times, passing through his shop, and the last tiime tells him she is leaving him. On two of these ocassions she is wearing her mack and an obvious rubber lined one it is. (Elvis)

I have seen the shopkeeper's wife too, and can believe the mac she is wearing is rubberised cotton, but it's very dark as well as quick in the copy of the film a have. L.E.

Further comment by H.

It’s Susan Shaw who wears a clear transparent raincoat in this film. - Rainy Brian

Although she was a glamourous starlet at the time, Patricia Plunkett in her hooded and belted plastic mac steals the film for me particularly near the end when she meets her boyfriend in the rain. (CP)

Tiny clip

(Claret , CP, Rainy Brian, Elvis, H, LE, RB)

Johnny Belinda, John Negulesco, USA, 1948

Jane Wyman (who famously married Ronald Regan when he was a bit-part film actor) starred as the deaf-mute girl in the title of the film Johnny Belinda. In one scene she comes into the bedroom of a female friend who was asleep and who asks drowsily "What are you wearing ?" The answer was a shiny black rubber mackintosh. In black and white, it looked superb and rustled and rippled and moved as "Johnny Belinda " struggled to tell her friend what was on her mind without being able to do so by speaking. Her mime became more and more agitated. The scene lasted only moments but I so well remembered those moments. As a teenager, I recall wishing passionately that Jane Wyman would wear her mackintosh, come into my bedroom and wake me ! (GW)

Arch of Triumph, Lewis Milestone, USA, 1948

This is a story about tragic romance between German refugee doctor Ravic (Charles Boyer) and actress Joan (Ingrid Bergman), taking place in Paris in the last months before World War II. Ravic is illegal and trying to avoid deportation back to Germany, where he has been imprisoned and tortured by the Nazis. Meanwhile, he occasionally meets in Paris one of those who tortured him.

In some scenes Ingrid Bergman can be seen in a black rubber mackintosh. (Artem)

In this classic "film noir" Cornel Wilde wears a trench coat in some scenes - but most of all Ida Lupino wears one - without epaulettes. (André and Artem)

Thanks for pics to Artem.

The Fallen Idol, Carol Reed, UK, 1948

Includes a scene in a police station where the main character (Bobby Henry) is comforted by a 'lady of the evening' - wearing a plastic mac. (LH) She is played by Dora Bryan. (Bob)

This is a somewhat neglected film version of a play. It stars Eleanor Parker as a broken-hearted actress who gets wooed by a lonely soldier (Ronald Reagan) and puts him up in her apartment. In one sequence, she wears a hooded gabardine raincoat. The film is much better than you might expect. (Dave D)

Life punishes the heroine, in this simple-minded sermon, by forcing her into prostitution after she escapes from Reform School. During a small (alas!) part of her ordeal she is buttoned and buckled very tightly into a terrific noirish kind of mackintosh. (H)

Tiny clip

Once a Jolly Swagman , Jack Lee, UK, 1948

aka Maniacs on Wheels

Renee Asherson wears a nice rubberised riding mac for a short while. Dirk Bogarde was the lead actor. (Pete D)

Tiny clip

In this film there is a wonderful sequence where we see Barbara Bel Geddes put on a long tinted transparent plastic raincoat. We then see her walking along in it and finally arriving at her destination and taking it off. (Clip on Rainwear Central) (Rainy Brian)

This film stars Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn, Helen Walker and Anna May Wong. It has quite a clever plot in which Irene Williams (Walker) hatches a plan with her lover to murder her husband, Walter (Donlevy). Things go wrong when the lover is interrupted before he can beat Walter over the head a second time to make sure he's dead. In his hurry to get away, the lover drives straight into a petrol (or as the Americans say, gasoline) tanker and his body is burnt beyond recognition. The police assume it is Walter Williams. Irene subsquently finds herself charged with conspiracy to murder after Lieutenant Quincy (Coburn) uncovers the plot. Meanwhile, Walter, concussed but not dead, starts a new life with Marsha Peters (Raines). He gets some satisfaction from reading reports of his wife's trial for his murder, but when the truth is revealed to Marsha, she persuades him to go back to San Francisco and clear Irene. He does, but only tells half the truth, and before you can say "tangled web", finds himself on trial for the lover's murder.
In a couple of scenes, Helen Walker wears a black raincoat. Eagle eyes may also spot a raincoat or two in a very brief street scene, including a darkish, hooded, beltless raincoat that one woman wears. (Dave D)

This was an attempt to make a film about a very popular strip cartoon, which ran from 1932 to 1959. The artist, Norman Pett, used Christabel Leighton-Porter to pose for him from 1939, and she subsequently made many personal appearances as Jane. It is she who stars in this film (and she is even named in the credits as Jane!). Christabel was no actress and, in fairness to her, she never professed to be one. The Censor was prepared to allow Jane to show her legs - but that was all. Sadly the film is truly awful. It plumbed such depths it almost got an unintentionally simultaneous release in New Zealand!!! However, in one brief scene Jane wears a heavy rubber-lined raincoat when at sea.

A youngish Peter Butterworth also appears in this film. As we all know, he did work again!

A further attempt to put her on the big screen in 1987, 'Jane and the Lost City', was equally dire - and had no macs either!

(Dave D)

L'Épave, Willy Rozier, France, 1949

"A physically strong man shoots tomatoes at all girls who do not take off their clothes" (from The Internet Movie Database). This may sound like a perfectly clear first line of a problem in Logic, but as the launchpad of a movie not so terribly promising. Concentrate on Françoise Arnoul.

(H. Nomination by André)

"Could it be that in The Third Man Alida Valli is simply wearing a coat full stop, and I have, so to speak, undressed and transposed her into a belted skin-grazing raincoat for reasons my psyche alone can understand?" Howard Jacobson, The Independent, 29:04:06.

Laurent adds: At the start of the film ,Trevor Howard is wearing an SBR trenchcoat - in the churchyard.

Within the first ten minutes, Susan Shaw comes downstairs to meet her boyfriend wearing a glorious polka dot rubberised taffeta mackintosh, tightly belted, with a hood showing the smooth white rubber lining. It swishes and rustles as she fastens the top button, and as she goes out the door pulls the hood up over her head. Wonderful! (James)

Another observer adds: The film starts with Dinah Sheridan and her boyfriend at a travel agents on a wet day. She is wearing a white opaque hooded plastic raincoat and when they go outside she pulls the hood up. Then a woman wearing a hooded raincoat is seen walking down the road in the pouring rain. Unfortunately she has an umbrella.

Dinah Sheridan is then seen arriving home and taking off her raincoat. (It is the same as the one worn by Patricia Plunkett in It Always Rains on a Sunday.) A few minutes later the other grown-up daughter Susan Shaw comes down the stairs wearing a polka-dot rubberlined hooded mackintosh. When she looks in the mirror the white rubberlining in the hood is clearly visible . We then get a back view of her pulling up the snug fitting hood. This scene only lasts 20 seconds but what a superb mackintosh!

Here it is - big big thanks to Alan D.

Newspaper journalist, Dorothy Patrick, tracks down leads on a serial killer who only strikes during heavy rainstorms. Her foul-weather gear shields her from the downpour but not from the lascivious stares of male pub patrons. Another picture in Rainy Day Cinema. (T)

This is a film about a reform school run by Jack Warner. The 'boys' are played by Richard Attenborough (then 26), Dirk Bogarde (28), Jimmy Hanley (31), John Blythe (28), Alfie Bass (29) and others, who as you can see were all rather mature for their parts.
Towards the end of the film there is a scene where Jimmy Hanley meets his girlfriend (Barbara Murray) in the rain. She wears a transparent plastic mac with the hood up. (Dave D)

Available on YouTube under 'The Boys in Brown 1949.'  The mac sequence begins about 36 minutes in.
(Colin aka Cole C. Porter)
(Dave D and Colin)

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