Flannery O'Connor's incisive sense of person and place is brilliantly captured in this 1979 film adaptation of her highly regarded first novel, which plays out as a broad comedy set within a timeless purgatory.

This time, Huston has found material that was all but guaranteed to fuel the battiest recesses of his imagination.

John Huston, with uncluttered direction and expert handling of actors, has fashioned a disturbing tale of the fringe side of overzealous religious preachers in the deep South.

In general, there is a more whimsical, picaresque tone where the book was much darker.