We're close to Tennessee Williams country here, with country accents rising high in the film version of a successful Broadway play. Half-a-dozen middle-aged women gather for the 20th anniversary meeting of a rather seedy James Dean remembrance club in a small Texas town and, true to form in this kind of thing, skeletons are soon cascading from cupboards as decades-old lies are stripped away to reveal less palatable truths beneath. Although the film can't quite escape its stage origins, it's very skilfully made by director Robert Altman, especially where the past is reflected in a huge mirror behind the bar of the 5 & Dime store. Sandy Dennis twitches in her familiar bird-like style as the frump who says her son is James Dean's, Cher is quite affecting as the fading belle of the town and Karen Black suitably enigmatic as an at-first-unrecognised stranger. Most impressive of all, however, is Marta Heflin's understated portrait of the pregnant mother-of-six who is happy with her lot.


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