 | I have taken quite a few acting classes here in Austin, just for fun. I then found out that one of my classmates actually appeared in this film for a few minutes. She did a good job.
The music in the movie is one of the best things about it. That also dates it around 1959 or 1960, although Hollywood is notorious for messing up this kind of thing (i.e., movie takes place in 1955, but song wasn't released until 1959).
Clay Hewitt (Vaughn) is a drifter who just shows up in a small Kansas. Kitty (Judd) makes his acquaintence in an interesting manner. Then her guy pickes a fight with him, which Clay quickly ends. Clay then finds a job and a room at the feedlot of Mrs. Potts (Capshaw). She has a reclusive and almost-silent son (Davies) called "Flyboy."
The movie goes into the typical power struggles, liasons, near-liasons, fights, and arguments. No character is particularly heroic or admirable, and the background information is incomplete. The ending is never completely resolved, but you are just happy that it's over when it does end. Some reviewers on IMDB compared it to a Tennessee Williams story.
Perhaps, most telling of the film's trashiness is the almost constant smoking. One reviewer on IMDB joked about getting lung cancer from just watching it. Others suggested that it may have been financed by the tobacco industry.
Acting is pretty good. Everyone seems pretty convincing. But it's hard to believe that anybody would act this way or be this way.
Unless you are big fan of Vaughn or Judd or have some other compelling reason, I can't recommend it. It's a typical, amoral soap opera.
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