Miracle in the Rain is a United States home front during World War II-themed novella by veteran screenwriter Ben Hecht, published in the April 3, 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post weekly magazine then, within six months, issued in booklet form and, thirteen years later, following four live television productions (in 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1953) which reduced the story to plot essentials, was adapted by him into a Warner Bros. feature film released on March 31, 1956. Film version Hecht's 1956 screenplay is directed by Rudolph Maté and stars Jane Wyman as a lonely New York City office worker and Van Johnson as the happy-go-lucky soldier whom she meets during a downpour. Character actress Eileen Heckart, who plays Jane Wyman's office friend, and Arte Johnson, who achieved TV fame twelve years later on Laugh-In, are seen here in their debut performances on the big screen. The music is by Franz Waxman and the black-and-white cinematography is by Russell Metty. A subplot about the heroine's estranged father, which was neither in the original story nor in any of the television adaptations, became one of the elements in the embellished screenplay. The film was produced on location, with several sequences filmed in Central Park and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Ten months before its release, while appearing as the "Mystery Guest" on the May 22, 1955 episode of CBS' live primetime weekly game show, What's My Line?, Van Johnson mentioned that he was in New York shooting scenes for his new film, Miracle in the Rain. The film earned an estimated $1.4 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada during 1956. Opening narration "Champion of all the cities of the Earth is the towering golden city of New York. It looms higher than any town of man before. Within its giant walls, its steel sinews, are more enterprises, more people, more mystery and more music than were ever known before. Its windows are like the leaves of a mighty forest and its streets are filled with wonder. Our story begins on a spring morning in May 1942 as the people of this remarkable city start to live and work another day." Plot A few months after America's entry into World War II, secretary Ruth Wood (Jane Wyman) lives quietly in Manhattan with her physically and emotionally fragile mother, Agnes (Josephine Hutchinson). Ruth's co-workers at Excelsior Shoe Manufacturing Company are