Overall, the performances are good and there are occasionally amusing and touching momemts in the otherwise talky, mostly drab, affair under Richard Brooks' direction.

Richard Brooks directed in a sort of free-wheeling way that carries the action jumpily from poignancy to farce and from moments of frowsy frustration to scenes of vulgar squawling en famille.

The tragedy got lost somewhere in Richard Brooks's crushingly blunt direction.

This eminently watchable misfire divides amateur and professional critics alike.