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It’s so freaking hot here, so all I can think about is the heat. So tonight, let’s talk about movies and shows where weather plays a part. Think Body Heat, or perhaps the other extreme, Insomnia, set in Alaska. A setting where the ocean or a blizzard or a hurricane played a role. For me, the rain played a huge role in the scene in The West Wing where President Bartlett is swearing at god.
Think about those old westerns, where Little Joe or someone got caught out in the desert and they would think they found water but their lips were parched and they were really shoveling sand in their mouths. Is a mirage really a thing when you are dehydrated?
In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.
Craig
I think the great grandaddy of them all is Greed. Great poster.
JaySinWa
For some reason I remember that as a thunder storm. Maybe I was expecting it to punctuate the swearing.
billcinsd
I far preferred the 1997 version of Insomnia with Stellan Skarsgard
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119375/
Scout211
The Perfect Storm was a very good book based on a true story and the movie was well done. The storm was massive.
The Perfect Storm trailer.
Splitting Image
Singin’ in the Rain, obviously.
Steamboat Bill Jr., by Buster Keaton, with the hurricane and the iconic scene where the wall falls on Buster right where the window is placed.
Rear Window, by Alfred Hitchcock. It takes place in a summer heat wave, which is why Jimmy Stewart’s character is snooping on all of the other people in his apartment building. They all have their windows open all the time and the young attractive woman across the way is wearing as little as possible to still be decent.
Chris
Well obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is The Day After Tomorrow.
It’s not a great movie, but I’m reasonably fond of it. But then I have more tolerance for Roland Emmerich cheesiness than many. I even enjoyed the American Godzilla.
Craig
Carpenter’s The Thing set in Antarctica. The intense isolation of that setting drives the whole story.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWa: It was a thunder storm, with rain. :-) I paused as I was typing my original statement and wondered if I should go with storm instead of rain!
Splitting Image
The Seven Year Itch was another heat wave based movie. Marilyn Monroe’s character is living in an apartment with no AC, so Tom Ewell’s character finds reasons for her to join him in his apartment so that she can be more comfortable. Also contains the iconic scene with the air venting up from the subway grating lifting Marilyn’s skirt.
Jacel
In an article about the TV show Portlandia, one of the creators said they sustained a conceit of never filming a local scene that showed the skies as cloudy or overcast, unless it was a comedy sketch that related to that sort of weather condition. Avoiding filming that typical weather of Portland, Oregon must have taken a lot of planning and discipline.
Another Scott
C.B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments? The clouds and the waters and all the rest probably made that movie.
Alien? Interior “weather”? The perpetual dank dampness and dripping on the Nostromo added to the creepiness and feeling of danger.
There must be a movie that has covered Jack London’s To Build a Fire, but I can’t think of one. That story has burrowed into my soul and won’t ever leave. ;-) Maybe The Revenant (I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it).
Best wishes,
Scott.
Bulgakov
The hurricane in Key Largo – Bogart, Bacall, EG Robinson. Great film.
narya
The sliding around the ballfield in Bull Durham!
Scout211
We can’t forget Disney’s Frozen.
I’ve try to forget it, but I just can’t let it go.
piratedan
Twister, The Fog, and Cold Pursuit
seem to make the weather a character in itself, others are key components, say like the lightning bolt in Back To The Future….
pajaro
Lawrence of Arabia–
The crossing of the Nefud. (the Arabian Desert, by his tribesman/army on their way to conquering Aqaba).
The first half of the movie, with the match flame turning into the desert sunrise, and the entry of Omar Sharif, coming out of the desert, remain the most amazing movie images I’ve ever seen.
eclare
@Craig:
That movie is the grandaddy of them all. Wow.
scav
Don’t know why, but heat and humidity permeated sex, lies and videotape for me, practically as a character.
Rusty
Cape Fear has the storm as the a major component of the dramatic ending.
eclare
@billcinsd:
I never saw the American version because the version with Skarsgard was so good.
eclare
@Splitting Image:
Great call on Rear Window. Everyone was trying to cope with the heat.
They Call Me Noni
The Revenant. I could not get through it. Found it to be incredibly boring but I do remember some guy trudging endlessly through the snow.
Scout211
@Splitting Image: @eclare:
Great movie.
And the heat was so well done in that movie, so believable. You could just feel it. To think it was all done back then on a soundstage is amazing.
Baud
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
ETA: And the Shining
Craig
@pajaro: Sherif Ali’s entrance is one of the greatest things in cinema. The guy who directs John Wick quoted the Match Cut in JW 4. It was clever. I’m sure I was the only one in the half full theater that noticed. Hat Tip to Anne V. Coates, editor extraordinaire.
Tony Jay
Angel Heart, every scene set in New Orleans and environs simply drips with humidity. People are sodden, suits are stained, the very air they breathe seems to be 90% other people’s sweat. By the last scene Harry’s decision to quietly take the lift to other climes makes perfect sense.
Sure, it’ll be rough going, and he’ll end up looking like the Marge Greene version of Mickey Rourke, but at least it’s a dry heat.
Another Scott
@Scout211: [ snort! ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
Keithly
@Another Scott: There is a version of ‘To build a fire’ that tells the story visually with no narration. I remember seeing it in the late 60’s or early 70’s on TV. I don’t recall any more details than that.
Leto
In Predator the heat plays a big factor. The woman they capture speaks about how during the hottest summers is when the creature appears, and it’s especially hot that year.
It’s the 50th anniversary of Jaws and I’m watching that atm. Summer, heat, virtually clouds… reminds me of the beaches I grew up on, sans demonic shark.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: Yes, Rear Window and Body Heat have to win the prize for heat. They make a lot of it in Inherit the Wind too.
For snow, the Russian miniseries of Doctor Zhivago did a good job.
Chris
The Longest Day. The entire first third of the movie is consumed by the question of whether the invasion of Normandy, having already been delayed by a day, will be able to go forward or have to be canceled and pushed back a month altogether, on account of the worst storms the English Channel has seen in quite some time. It’s a sobering reminder that even a technological juggernaut on the scale of the Allied army of 1944 are still hugely affected (and sometimes thwarted altogether) by things as simple as wind and rain.
prostratedragon
Do the Right Thing, on the hottest day of the year. Dr. Zhivago, in the ice. The Hurricane has highly effective effects for 1937. Rashomon has good rain effects, which reportedly were difficult to achieve; seems things didn’t look wet enough on film just by pouring or spraying even large quantities of water.
2liberal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Cry_Wolf_(film)
Never Cry Wolf , set in the Arctic
Sure Lurkalot
The beautiful, nonverbal, Academy Award Animated Feature winner, FLOW, whose antagonist is a great flood. Streaming on MAX.
Highly recommend this movie, especially in these troubled times.
Splitting Image
I’ll add The Empire Strikes Back to the list, particularly the Hoth sequences, which focus on the extreme cold of the planet. Luke and Han are caught outside during the night and are not thought likely to survive.
prostratedragon
@Tony Jay: Oh my, yes! Both the chill of New York at the beach and upstate, and the sweltering humidity of New Orleans, which is practically a character. One of my favorite movies.
2liberal
Made me think of “Quest for fire” , set 80K years ago with no dialog, not on TV and made in 1981
prostratedragon
@pajaro:
If the chance to see it on the big wide 70mm screen comes along, take it!
Leto
Dune is another standout in terms of heat; Villeanue conveys the extreme desert heat really well via all the shimmers out on the open sand, as well as seeing everyone in a stillsuit. They do a number of things that kind of breach the Fremen rules of water conservation, but that’s film making. Still reminds me of the years I spent in the mid-East.
Splitting Image
Weather plays a large role in Sally Potter’s Orlando. Each era has a characteristic weather pattern, and the 1600s sequence involves the freezing of the River Thames in 1608, a real historical event.
Great costumes in that movie, too.
RandyG
Rain (1932), with Joan Crawford as Sadie Thompson, which was a remake of Sadie Thompson (1928), with Gloria Swanson, and in turn was remade as Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), with Rita Hayworth. All based on the 1921 W Somerset Maugham short story “Miss Thompson.” There have been other adaptations as well, including plays, an opera, a pornographic film, and a musical.
Suzanne
Do the Right Thing. Snowpiercer. The English Patient.
KrackenJack
I’ll throw in an endorsement for the short story “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” by Conrad Aiken.
stinger
For movies, In the Heat of the Night; Fargo; The English Patient (if not exactly weather, the Sa-ha-ra plays a big role. The Bodyguard: in the climax scene, they’re all out in a glam cabin in the snowy woods.
For TV, two different episodes of The Rifleman feature the desert. In one, a convict that Luke and Micah are transporting tells them about how with great thirst, you might mistake the sand for water, then he himself actually reaches that point. In another episode, Luke and Mark have gone to the desert to load up a year’s worth of salt, but the horses run away and Luke is injured; little Mark has to hike alone across miles and miles of desert to get help.
ETA: Smilla’s Sense of Snow.
schrodingers_cat
Kalidasa’s Meghdoot. (Cloud Messenger)
There are many movies where monsoon rains (or the lack thereof) are an important aspect of the story. And many musical compositions and poems that celebrate the rains.
twbrandt
This is probably quite obscure, but Rod Serling’s Night Gallery did a TV adaptation of Conrad Aiken’s Silent Snow, Secret Snow, in which a boy retreats into a fantasy world where snowfall smothered everything. Orson Welles narrated.
ETA: KrackenJack beat me to it.
Steve LaBonne
You get both extremes in the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Midnight Sun“.
Omnes Omnibus
Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell does a lot with heat.
Just look at that parking lot
There’s an episode of the Twilight Zone called The Midnight Sun. The premise it that earth is out of its orbit and is moving closer to the sun. It takes place in a woman’s apartment and shows her dealing with the miseries of extreme heat. Sweat, thirst, listlessness, etc.
The twist at the end is that earth isn’t getting closer to the sun, it’s moving further away from it. She was hallucinating it being so hot when it was really freezing cold and this was how her mind was dealing with her true situation.
This episode deserves a lot higher ranking that most list put it at.
Dan B
McCabe and Mrs. Miller filmed on Vancouver Island. The sun is never seen and the weather starts as non stop rain and progresses to non stop snow. It’s a metaphor for the story that adds greatly to the feel. I remember it vividly even though I saw it in 1973.
cain
It’s been raining all weekend so we here in Portland are having hoodie weather where it’s about 65-72F
RandyG
The Wind, classic and very creepy 1928 silent with Lillian Gish, directed by Victor Sjostrom. Was unavailable for a long time, but passed into the public domain in 2024, so now it’s readily available.
Princess
Great topic.
The rain at the gazebo scene in The Sound of Music with Liesl and You are Sixteen…. and the Rolf dude who becomes a Nazi.
zhena gogolia
I’ve never watched the whole thing straight through, but Ang Lee’s Ice Storm does a great job of capturing that good old New England phenomenon.
KrackenJack
@twbrandt: Ah, but I didn’t know about the Twilight Zone episode, so I was just topic-adjacent.
p.a.
Remember the Cheers skit when they discussed “sweatiest movies”?
https://youtu.be/RXzqFdBwrmk?si=P4ZWk8fM-A0dAZcw
Abnormal Hiker
Monsoon rains in Year of Living Dangerously.
prostratedragon
@RandyG: They showed it on TCM a few months ago. Does not want to make one want to live on an isolated farm on the prairie.
RandyG
@Just look at that parking lot: Great Twilight Zone episode, but there are far more of those than the fair-to-middlin’ ones.
I’ve been watching some The Outer Limits episodes lately. Sure, it’s a somewhat different genre than Twilight Zone, but the episodes I watched were actually quite bad, even ones that had high IMDB ratings. Quite a disappointment from my supposedly fond memories.
eclare
@p.a.:
A Time To Kill had a lot of very sweaty scenes.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
This is a little OT, since the weather doesn’t affect the plot, but there is a scene in The Sting, where guys are running from their car into a metal-roofed building in the POURING rain. We were in a drought in CA when I first saw the movie and the rain really impressed me. I’ve never forgotten it.
prostratedragon
From “The Midnight Sun,” The Twilight Zone:
Chris
Wait, you said “weather in film or TV.” Oh good, more opportunities:
“The Storm”/”The Eye,” the mid-season two-parter of the first season of Stargate Atlantis. Massive storm threatens the city, enemies take advantage of it to take the city, Sheppard has to pull a John McClane in the middle of the storm.
“Eye of the Storm” from The Finder, Walter goes looking for a missing schoolgirl in the middle of a hurricane. A nice case of the story really exploiting its Florida setting.
“The Hurricane Job” from Leverage: Redemption, sort of a cross between the two previous ones, the team has to take down some dirty cops who’ve taken over a hotel in the middle of a hurricane and also find what they’re looking for.
Scout211
I loved that movie. And yes, it was filled with so much rain and so much mud.
bluefoot
Dog Day Afternoon for me. August in NYC is its own kind of miserable. I saw that movie before I experienced a summer in New York. Even at night the heat radiates from the sidewalks and buildings after baking all day in the sun, and there’s that feeling of trying to hold it together while everything is miserable.
RandyG
@prostratedragon: You said it!
How I wish TCM was available as a standalone streaming channel on Roku. I’m not about to pay big bucks for a cable or streaming package just to get TCM.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
Only show I can volunteer here is:
In The Summer When It’s Hot and Sticky, written by Doug Holsclaw, directed by Barbara Daoust, produced by Theatre Rhinoceros (San Francisco). Late winter 1989.
bluefoot
For tv and at the other extreme of temperature, there was an episode of MASH that took place in the winter and the entire episode was about dealing with the cold.
Glidwrith
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly had a desert scene where Eastwood got pretty crispy in revenge from Ugly when Eastwood had left him to die in the desert.
The Fog – completely obscured an enemy that otherwise could have been easily fought.
Soylent Green always struck me, because everyone was sweltering from the heat.
Dan B
@Scout211: With Julie Christie and Warren Beatty. They were at their most gorgeous and Christie was especially good
I saw it in Louisville after spending nine months is Tacoma abd realized I wanted to go back to cloudy PNW.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia:
Of course! I should have thought of that!
eclare
The Wizard of Oz. Without the tornado, there would be no movie.
prostratedragon
@RandyG: Can you get Max? TCM streams many of their movies there, though I don’t know about that one in particular.
WaterGirl
@cain: Think about those of us who have 100 degrees and high humidity. Gloating is unseemly! :-)
WaterGirl
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Not OT at all!
prostratedragon
High and Low resonates, now that we’ve stewed along with the Tokyo Olympics. This August there’s a remake coming out with Denzel Washington, by Spike Lee.
Leto
@Scout211: I remember the film sort of talks about the pararescue team that went out to save the sailboat crew, but right before the movie came out (or maybe at the same time) Airman magazine (AF interservice magazine) ran a story on the para crew that went out. I can’t remember all the details, but the crew ran out of fuel after trying to refuel a few times.
They made the call to ditch, and the first pararescue guy out (one of the most experienced guys in service) made the mistake of jumping between swells. He fell the equivalent of like 10 stories and was never seen again. The rest of the crew (other para guy, both pilots) made it out, came together, and rode out the storm in this little inflatable dingy until a Coast Guard ship got to them a long time later.
I’ve scoured the Airman database for that article but never found it. It was really good and something I wish I could share.
Just look at that parking lot
The Perfect Storm fit into this topic. It also fits into another Medium Cool topic from a while back. The book was way better than this movie.
RandyG
@prostratedragon: Yes, I can get Max. I looked at it late last year when they ran their sale, but passed on it and didn’t notice anything particular about TCM or TCM-style flicks. I can look again. Thanks for the suggestion.
mrmoshpotato
@piratedan: Twister came to mind fir me too.
“I gotta go Julia, we got cows.” as a cow goes flying past them.
prostratedragon
Chillin’ with Henry Purcell:
Aria
Chorus
narya
Oh, wait: Long Hot Summer! Paul Newman at his Newman-ist, Joanne Woodward, awesome cast, screenplay by Faulkner IIRC.
zhena gogolia
@RandyG: You can stream TCM on YouTubeTV.
danielx
The Revenant.
RandyG
@zhena gogolia: Right, thanks. But it’s also a whole package of cable and streaming channels, and big bucks.
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: I love The Ice Storm! Haven’t seen it in years.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Not sure I ever saw the movie. What a great line!
mrmoshpotato
Jurassic Park (1993)
The tropical storm plays a major part in the movie.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I was a big fan of the movie 7 with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. It basically rained throughout the entire movie except for the last terrible scene.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: It’s on the SyFy channel occasionally. Released in 1996 starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton.
mrmoshpotato
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Oh yes! (Mr. Burns “Excellent!” fingers)
Craig
@Leto: completely agree.
Marc
Blade Runner was set in a world of perpetual dark/rain to cut the cost of filming the “outdoor” action scenes.
JaySinWa
@WaterGirl:
Thanks, I thought I had misremembered the storm. Hallucinations. they’re not just for AI.
ETA I even found a description of the scene online with no mention of the storm at all.
mayim
My former in-laws subjected me to one of the worst movies I have ever seen: Snow Day.
Plot, as best I can remember: several kids scheme to disable the [supposed] one and only snowplow in Syracuse NY to have a mythical second snow day in a row.
I grew up in Buffalo and western Maine. That movie was so very painful ~ and obviously written by someone who had never lived anywhere with even occasional snow.
Off to check job listings at the Newfoundland and Shetland archives. It’s supposed to be over 90 a couple days this week in Maine ~ too hot for me!
Marc
@mrmoshpotato: I saw it once when it first came out and never again. I’ve never been able to handle movies with that kind of plot twist.
khead
Glad to see the nod(s) to Do the Right Thing. That is one sweaty movie. 12 Angry Men is pretty sweaty before the rain.
RevRick
A Christmas Carol — cold kills.
The Day After Tomorrow
Dmkingto
Well, if we’re including hot & sweaty, gotta include Cool Hand Luke. Another classic Paul Newman movie.
artem1s
Cape Fear
Wizened_guy
Key Largo, not just because the hurricane plays a role but because Bogie, Bacall and Edward G. Robinson.
Craig
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): top twenty five best movies. George Roy Hill was a genius.
Craig
@eclare: nice!
stinger
A Streetcar Named Desire — summer swelter. The African Queen, where a torrential downpour is key to the plot. Jeremiah Johnson — snow in the mountains.
Trivia Man
@Bulgakov: the hurricane was an important plot point that wouldn’t have to be adjusted much, even today
i cant forget the locals standing on the porch because the gangsters wont let them in
lamh47
Football ain’t my thing…I don’t watch the sport nor do I follow it. I’m not evan much a fan of football movies either so I have no top 10 list to talk of, but the one football movie I will NEVER not stop and watch when I rolls on my screen is… Remember the Titans
Craig
@Old Dan and Little Ann: the box
NotMax
More than obviously, 1937’s The Hurricane.
‘)
H.E.Wolf
I Know Where I’m Going! by William Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 1945.
The heroine travels from England to Scotland to get married, and then is prevented by several days of terrible weather from joining her fiancé on a nearby island.
Meanwhile, someone else is also stranded: a Navy officer, briefly on leave, who is trying to get to the same island….
Oh, and there’s a curse. And a ceilidh. And a castle.
ETA: https://secondsightcinema.com/i-know-where-im-going-1945/
RandyG
@H.E.Wolf: I’m generally not a fan of Powell & Pressburger, but I do highly recommend I Know Where I’m Going. Wendy Hiller is wonderful.
Btw, Michael Powell, not William. ;)
Gloria DryGarden
While reading the fifth sacred thing, by starhawk, there is a scene in the climax where it is pouring rain; and it rained hard outside, in real life at the same time.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Probably a dead thread but Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – the entire plot revolves around the weather – he plays hookie because it’s a spectacular spring day. Nobody said it had to be movies where the weather is unpleasant.
Didn’t see anyone mention the Mad Max movies yet but I could have missed it. The heat and dryness are very palpable in those.
Also didn’t see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof mentioned. Another steamy Paul Newman – Tennessee Williams one.
zhena gogolia
@H.E.Wolf: I adore it
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: And then there’s The Rainmaker (1954),with Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster. The setting is a farm and nearby town that are suffering through a severe drought. Then the charismatic conman Starbuck shows up and promises to make it rain again, for a fee.
Hepburn won an Oscar for her role. Lancaster should have, but his Starbuck character might have been too subversive for that era.
The Rainmaker was based on the Broadway play of the same title. The movie is not an adaptation so much as a filmed production of the play. That seemed to me to give it a special character, as an artifact of mid-20th American culture.
Matt McIrvin
Fargo and Do The Right Thing, already mentioned, were the first two that came to mind–set in a snow-covered Minnesota winter and a hot Brooklyn summer.
In Marge Gunderson’s famous monologue to one of the killers at the end of Fargo, she adds offhand “…and it’s a beautiful day.” And then the scene cuts to emergency vehicles moving along through this white landscape in a haze of thrown snow.
WaterGirl
@stinger:
Oh my gosh, yes! No wonder he was yelling at Stella. :-)
WaterGirl
@lamh47: That’s how I feel about the original Overboard.
Trivia Man
@Geminid: and certainly inspired by the true story of the rainmaker who ended a drought… and was later sued for the catastrophic floods that “he brought”.
ETA – Charles hatfield, san diego, 1915
Just Some Flyover
“They said it was so hot today grown men were going up to cops in the street, begging the cops to shoot them.”
-Pacino’s line from Glengarry Glen Ross
H.E.Wolf
@RandyG: Thank you!
@zhena gogolia: With you 100%.
@Geminid: How have I never seen this?! Straight to the top of the list for future viewing.
As it happens, I’m more familiar with “110 In The Shade”, the musical which was based on “The Rainmaker”. Audra McDonald had the Hepburn role in the 2007 Broadway production.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFLOJbGZdPc
Wishing everyone good weather!
lou
I’m glad someone mentioned Key Largo, where a hurricane plays a key role.
Australia has lots of great movies where weather plays a role, like The Last Wave and more recently, The Dry.
Shana
@zhena gogolia: youTube TV does not however have CSPAN
John Sterling
The Caine Mutiny. The storm which blasted the Caine touched off the mutiny and subsequent court martial.
The Rains Came. Depiction of monsoon rains and floods won the very first Oscar for Visual Effects.
George Kennan Was Right
“Keep talking, Matty. Experience has shown that I can be convinced of anything.”
Maybe William Hurt’s best line reading. And considering how hot (and smart) Kathleen Turner is in that movie, completely believable.