(1966) Living alone in an abandoned boarding house, a condemned property, in Dodson, Mississippi, during the Depression '30s, Willie Starr (Mary Badham), a teenager who's "quituated" from school, tells Tom (Jon Provost), another teenager, about herself, her mother Hazel (Kate Reid), and her older sister Alva (Natalie Wood).

Sidney Pollack directed this drama of dashed dreams, suggested from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, with screenplay co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, and Edith Sommer.

As Owen Legate's (Robert Redford) about to step off the locomotive, the engineer asks him: "How do you sleep at night?" On his stomach, he replies.

At the boarding house Hazel Starr, the owner, is celebrating her 43rd birthday; Owen pays a week in advance, taking the absent husband's bedroom. Willie's inquisitive while smoldering with sexuality, Alva, the railroad town's "main attraction," flirts with Owen in her papa's bedroom until he insults her.

She's desperate to get away, dreaming of New Orleans, 247 railroad miles away. He's a spotter with a pocketful of pink slips. "I have no dream," Owen admits, asking of Alva's fanciful nature, as they sit inside the hot, dusty Honeydew Express, an old passenger coach her father had decorated for her: "Why do you make everything so special?"

Her hard-hearted mother keeps urging Alva to show her best boarder, Mr Gerard Johnson, whose wife's an invalid, some sweetness and consideration - doing so would just be sacrificing a few weeks of her life - hoping in return he'll provide her (Hazel) with a loan to start anew in Memphis with the layoffs ruining her current business.

Begging Owen, "Let's pretend for tonight you're not leaving," Alva and the least popular man in Dodson go to a movie, after which he's attacked by several disgruntled men recently relieved of their livelihood. Immediately after Owen departs for New Orleans, Alva gets drunk with Mr Johnson and then dares her mother's beau, J.J. (Charles Bronson), to marry and free her from her mother's scheming.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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