After Choose Me, Rudolph was hired to replace another director on Songwriter, an affectionate chronicle of life on the country music circuit. It introduced him to actor/musician Kris Kristofferson whom he cast as the classic romantic loner Hawk in Trouble in Mind. Set in seedy Rain City in some vaguely ominous future, Trouble follows Hawk, an ex-cop and ex-con who spent eight years in the slammer for killing a man he calls "evil itself.” Released from prison, Hawk returns to the brightly lit cafe of his worldly-wise former lover Wanda (Geneviève Bujold), a place where the down-and-out rub shoulders with the young and innocent. There he spots the lovely Georgia (Lori Singer), innocence incarnate. Unfortunately, she’s the wife of Coop (Keith Carradine), a country boy corrupted by the big city. Rudolph calls Trouble in Mind "cross pollinated.” He notes, "On one level it’s a traditional suspense story with the hard-boiled guy and the beautiful young woman. Then there’s the absolute fable aspect – the side that’s reality as we recognize it, distorted into a more bizarre version.” Outrageous, audacious and endearing, the film is also notable for the final screen appearance of John Waters’ star Divine (in his first male role!) as a sartorially splendid villain. The glistening neo-noir world captured by Toyomichi Kurita’s camera pulsates with Mark Isham’s urban jazz score and the raw romanticism of Marianne Faithfull’s songs.