A talented cast is pretty much miscast in this saga allegedly loosely based on William Faulkner novel, a follow-up for director Martin Ritt and Joanne Woodward from the previous year's "The Long Hot Summer". That saga of southern decadence is a classic in comparison to this film, and it shows that when Hollywood goes overboard on a theme, a lot of times they fall on their face. While most of the adaptions of Tennessee Williams plays did very well, other authors were not as lucky. I know nothing about the William Faulkner novel so I can only judge by the film itself which is a confusing soap opera of troubled characters who serve no real purpose other than to see everybody else around them with their messed up brains.

The trouble begins with family matriarch Françoise Rosay, a hateful old woman who seems to be two different characters as far as moods and motivations. Her three faces are not like Eve's, and it seems that she lives to make everybody around her miserable. Sons Yul Brynnur (looking silly in an orange wig), Jack Warden and John Beal are equally messed up, adopted granddaughter Joanne Woodward is on the road to becoming a tramp, and the sudden return of her once beautiful but trashy mother Margaret Leighton is the yeast in this cake filled with sour ingredients.

Everything is there to make for a fascinating look at a troubled family, and it does become engrossing, if often ridiculous, starting with the miscasting of Brynnur and Woodward. Yul is fine in his acting, but he does not appear to be at all related to this family, and Woodward is obviously a good decade too old for her part. At first glance, she does look young, and I tried to suspend disbelief thinking of Julie Harris in "A Member of the Wedding", but when the camera finally does come close to her, it is obvious that she is far too old to be cast in this part, unless her character's life has been so hard that it staged her a decade even in her teens.

Every southern saga has to seem to have some sort of drifter character, and in this case, it's Stuart Whitman who shows up and begins to flirt with Woodward. It's obvious that this relationship will lead to no good, especially considering the dramatic music that plays in the background when he frantically runs through her estate trying to find her.

Other than Leighton, the only real touch of class in this film is a presence of Ethel Waters as a longtime servant, having issues with her own family which includes a young grandson who has been assigned to be a companion to the Warden. A disturbing scene has Warden being taken into a town festival as part of a supposed freak show and another scene where two young kids get together to dare each other to throw a rock at him. This film is best watched with the mentality that it will be like a trashy novel rather than the American classic that Faulkner had written 30 years before.