text: How do you make a totally unappealing movie out of a story by one of America's most famous authors? Watch this film and find out. Maybe I am overrating author Carson McCullers, but I was impressed by "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" and was hoping for something memorable here, too. Forget it.<br /><br />Vanessa Redgrave looks like a man with her short haircut and clothing. I never found her much to get excited about in almost any movie, anyway. Rod Steiger as a preacher? How insulting is that? Unlikable characters, one after the other. Well, maybe that's the book, too, and I am being unfair to this film. I am not familiar with the story other than what I saw on screen and this was so unappealing a movie that I could never recommend it to anyone.<br /><br />It's just one backwards person after another in a backward town. Outside of some nice cinematography here and there, there is nothing to recommend. How anyone could sit through 100 minutes of this is amazing.<br /><br />I didn't even go into how bad this is directed. There is good news: this was the only film Simon Cowell directed.