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CREATING "JOHN GRISHAM'S THE RAINMAKER"

The key to Coppola's approach to mounting his production of "John Grisham's The Rainmaker" was realism, attention to detail, and the use of location, image, props and symbols to heighten and underscore the basic themes of the novel.

The care which went into casting the starring and featured roles extended to the extras as well. Davia Nelson served as Locations Casting Director, her job to coordinate day players, local actors, and featured extras. Says Nelson, who is a frequent collaborator with Coppola, "I think my job on this movie was to add more and more of Memphis, to have an ear to the ground in the place we were filming and to bring that place into the film. To capture the people, the feelings, the flavors, the tones, and to do it mainly through casting."

Principal photography began in Memphis in October, 1996. "We went down there, we looked, we talked to some people who'd worked there before," says Fuchs. "Memphis is actually a very easy place to work, it's very film-friendly. There was absolutely no consideration to shoot it anywhere else."

Memphis offered something else to Coppola: the symbol of the Pyramid, which became the emblem of Great Benefit. The Memphis Pyramid, along the Mississippi River and near the downtown Convention Center, is used as a sports, concert and convention venue. It is also very visible in the Memphis skyline. Says Coppola, "When you go to a city you always look around to see what in the city you can use and how you can take advantage of what's there to tell the story. The Pyramid is so noticeable right in the middle of the city. It struck me that the symbol of the pyramid was a great symbol for Great Benefit, because it's this idea that the top exerts pressure on the bottom, that wealth ultimately comes from the bottom. So I just made it the symbol of Great Benefit with this idea that the top squeezes the bottom and always has, and it seemed to be put there for that purpose."

Among Memphis locations used were two local homes, for Miss Birdie and Dot and Buddy, which served for both interior and exteriors. The garage apartment where Rudy lives is actually behind the house used for Miss Birdie's. The North End Bar, with a little bit of interior alteration, became Yogi's, and The Butcher Shop, where Bruiser takes Rudy and Deck to dinner, appeared as itself, as did The Arcade, the oldest diner in Memphis, which first opened in 1919 at the end of the trolley line on South Main Street, not far from the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum.

Two local elementary schools also played their parts: the "cafetorium" as they call it at Springdale Elementary became the Cypress Gardens Senior Center. The Rozelle Elementary School didn't appear in the film, but was crucial in another sense. As Locations Manager Scott Elias says, "We obliterated their lawn for our catering tent."

There were also two hospitals on the locations list. St. Peter's Hospital was created at the Regional Medical Center of Memphis, the facility known as The Med. Memphis sometimes seems like a city where every other building is a hospital, but The Med is the only one in town that takes indigent patients. It is also the busiest trauma center in the mid-South. Shooting went on around the hospital's busy schedule.

Also used was Baptist Memorial Hospital, which was once also known as E.H. Crump Hospital. Dormant for almost two years, and most recently a rehabilitation center, it was recently given to an organization called Mission Core, whose whole goal is to get homeless people off the streets, give them a place to stay, get them jobs, and get them fed and clothed. As soon as the production finished shooting, Mission Core took over the facility.

Two facilities of the Union Planters Bank supplied Drummond's office, a hospital cafeteria, and the Great Benefit Boardroom.

Rudy takes the bar in the Continental Ballroom of the famous Peabody Hotel, a Memphis landmark. The Shelby County Courthouse served as a two-day location. Rudy and Deck's office was situated in the Bruce Printing Company.