A student falls in love with a Southern belle, but their relationship is complicated by her troubled past and the onset of the Civil War.
In mid-19th-century Freehaven, Raintree County, Indiana, John Wickliff Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift) has just graduated from high school at the top of his class, with a promising career as a writer. He is a romantic, principled idealist, believing the story of the golden raintree after which the county is named growing somewhere, most likely in the county's swamp area, searching for it because locating it would provide all the answers to life's questions--an idea passed down from his father. John also has a strong sense of place as belonging, and there is much anticipation in the probable marriage between him and his sweetheart Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint), a born-and-bred Raintree girl. However, there is an undeniable mutual attraction on first sight between him and Susanna Drake (Dame Elizabeth Taylor), a visiting southern belle. Despite Susanna's temporary stay in Raintree County suggesting that she and John have a limited future, they eventually do marry out of circumstance, leaving behind a heartbroken Nell. As their relationship progresses, differences in their outlooks mirroring the differences between the north and the south emerge and charge to the forefront, both personally and on a global level with the onset of the American Civil War. Their relationship issues are also exacerbated by secrets, both facts and beliefs, Susanna is keeping about her family history, including her parents and her Black nanny being killed in a mysterious house fire when she was a child.—Huggo
Abolitionist John Wickliff Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift) drifts away from his high-school sweetheart Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint) and enters into a passionate love affair with wealthy New Orleans belle Susanna Drake (Dame Elizabeth Taylor), but is tricked into marrying her when she falsely tells him that she is pregnant. But even after Susanna tells him the truth, he stays with her out of love. He soon learns that she's hiding a dark secret which leads her into madness, causing her to flee to the south during the Civil War, taking their son with her. John leaves home and enlists in the Northern Army as his only means to pursue Susanna.—Matt Patay
In the town of Freehaven in Raintree County, Indiana, the high school class of 1859 poses for a photograph. Everyone expects great things of valedictorian John Wickliff Shawnessy (Montgomery Clift), in particular his sweetheart, Nell Gaither (Eva Marie Saint), who admires Johnny for his idealism, poetry and respect for truth and justice. Before graduation, Prof. Jerusalem Webster Stiles (Nigel Patrick), who smilingly describes himself as "pitiful and harmless", relates to his students a local legend: Raintree County is named for a golden rain-tree, which was planted somewhere in the region by Johnny Appleseed. "Find it," declares the professor in an unusually pensive mood, "and you will learn the secret of life itself." Johnny immediately sets out to locate the tree, but as he wanders through a swamp, he nearly drowns.
Back in town, Orville "Flash" Perkins (Lee Marvin) boasts that, in addition to being "half horse, half alligator", he is the area's top runner. Johnny challenges him to a race, and on the Fourth of July, the two competitors meet in the street. Before the race, the men engage in a drinking contest, and although Johnny, who has never before drunk whiskey, is rendered nearly senseless, he nonetheless wins the race. Later that day, Johnny goes to the river for a picnic with the professor, an attractive married woman named Lydia Grey (Myrna Hansen), and a beautiful visitor from the South named Susanna Drake (Elizabeth Taylor). Johnny and Susanna go swimming, and then, in a moment of passion, make love.
The next day, Susanna returns to New Orleans, and Johnny returns to Nell. When Stiles tries to run away with Lydia, her outraged husband Ezra (Rhys Williams) tries to shoot him, but after Stiles swears that he never touched Lydia, Johnny helps the professor to leave town. The same train that carries Stiles to safety, however, brings Susanna back to Freehaven with a desperate message for Johnny: she is pregnant. Johnny announces their marriage, whereupon his father, T. D. Shawnessy (Walter Abel), a gentle and educated minister, somewhat sadly wishes the young man happiness. Nell also wishes him well but tearfully confesses that she still loves him.
On the boat trip to New Orleans, Susanna is shocked to discover that Johnny is an abolitionist and nervously proclaims that nothing is worse than having a drop of Negro blood in one's veins. The couple visits the ruins of a family plantation that burned when Susanna was a child. Acting strangely, Susanna sorrowfully declares that she dearly loved her former nanny, a black Cuban named Henrietta Courtney, who perished with the girl's parents in the conflagration. Johnny questions Susanna's cousin and learns that after her parents were married, her mother went slowly insane. Her father met Henrietta and brought her home to care for little Susanna. When the bodies were taken from the fire, it appeared that the child's father and Henrietta had been shot, but no one was able to prove this.
Johnny brings Susanna back to Raintree County, where he becomes a teacher. Susanna admits that she never was pregnant, but Johnny assures her of his love nonetheless. When Lincoln wins the 1860 presidential election, Susanna announces that to please her husband, she has freed her two slaves and now pays them wages. This prompts several of their guests to laugh, and Susanna, believing she has again displeased her husband, becomes hysterical. Johnny calms her, but later, after giving birth to a son on the very day that Civil War is declared (April 12, 1861), Susanna informs him that two babies were born, and that "they" threw the dark one away.
One year later, Nell returns to Freehaven after living for a time in Indianapolis, and it is clear that she still loves Johnny. Susanna's nightmares and wild-eyed outbursts have become more frequent, and one evening, Johnny persuades her to tell him about the fire. Jealous of Susanna's love for Henrietta, the child's mother had flown into a rage, thereby angering the little girl. When Susanna realized that her father also loved Henrietta, she vengefully revealed this in an anonymous note to her mother. That night, she heard a crackling sound in Henrietta's room, and soon afterward, the fire consumed the house. Believing her mother had killed the lovers because of her note, Susanna had always felt responsible for the tragedy. Johnny tries to comfort Susanna, but one day, he arrives home to find that she has taken their son Jim and fled to Georgia.
With his wife gone, Johnny joins the Union Army, and as his train departs, Nell confesses that she has never stopped loving him. Johnny joins an Indiana brigade that includes not only Flash, but his old friend Stiles, who is now a war correspondent. The men participate in a number of hellish battles, and in November 1864 find themselves in Atlanta. Wary of rebel snipers, Johnny and Flash approach an old cabin that once belonged to Henrietta. Inside are little Jim and two Drake slaves. One of them explains that although Susanna was not Henrietta's child, she always believed that she was. Consumed by madness, Susanna had been taken to an asylum some time earlier. Johnny carries little Jim toward the Union camp, but as they run through the woods, Flash is shot by rebel soldiers and dies.
After the war ends in 1865, Johnny finds Susanna in a wretched asylum and takes her home. He returns to his teaching job, but his friends believe he should run for Congress. Susanna realizes that it is she who holds him back, and that Nell still deeply loves him. That night, Susanna, telling Jim that she hopes to find the golden rain-tree for Johnny, says goodbye and runs toward the swamp. Alarmed, Jim follows her, and soon afterward a search party is organized. In the morning, Stiles, who has returned to Raintree County to marry the widowed Lydia Grey, discovers that Susanna has drowned. In agony, Johnny continues to search for his son. The weeping boy hears his father's voice, and with great relief, Johnny, Nell, and Jim head out of the swamp, unaware of the tall tree gleaming golden in the sunlight.
