Laurence Harvey is terrific as a penniless Texas cowboy who hitches his way to New Orleans in the 1930s in search of a lost summer love, a French artist who--unbeknownst to him--is now working at a bordello; Barbara Stanwyck is the madame at the Doll House, married to a crippled tough but with heavy lesbian leanings towards Capucine, the girl who broke Harvey's heart; Jane Fonda is pretty good as a teen tramp who also ends up working for Stanwyck, and Anne Baxter is a proprietress of a diner who takes Harvey in. Though based on a novel by Nelson Algren, this screenplay sometimes plays like sub-Tennessee Williams, with the rather laughable story-conceit that New Orleans was just another small town in the '30s (walk up the street and you've seen it all!). Capucine, haughty and breathless, matches up well with Harvey, and her run-ins with benefactor Stanwyck are heated, but those hoping for some crackling gay subtext will be disappointed (Barbara's inclinations aren't hypothetical, but she's hardly out of the closet). There are some good, fruity lines of tough-talking dialogue and also some sentimental moments with surprising resonance (as when Baxter says, "Why can't two people care about each other...without the world making it dirty?"). Of course it's Hollywood-ized, with a camp score by Elmer Bernstein and Joanna Moore in the clichéd role of the good-hearted tootsie who gets taken for granted. But Fonda has a great scene near the end when she helps Capucine out of a jam, and Harvey makes a big impression on the audience without overstating his sleek handsomeness. *** from ****

It's Texas in the early 30's. Dove Linkhorn (Laurence Harvey) is a drifter who encounters Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda) sleeping on the side of the road. She joins him on his journey to New Orleans to find his girl Hallie Gerard (Capucine). They stop at a roadside gas station diner where they are helped by the owner Teresina Vidaverri (Anne Baxter). Dove writes letters to Hallie but they are intercepted by her madam Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck).

This movie starts with Jane Fonda in a showy role and then she disappears for awhile. She's obviously coming back into the movie later on and there is an obvious way for her to do that. The diner section stalls the story at an important point. It's better to have Dove and Kitty arrive in New Orleans sooner rather than later. The plot has to wait a bit during the slower middle section. It's early in Jane Fonda's career. It's perfectly reasonable that they didn't know that Jane Fonda is going to be Jane Fonda. Or else they would have given the Hallie role to her.

This films is to New Orleans bordellos what "The Best of Everything" was to advertisement agencies and "Valley of the Dolls" was to Broadway hopefuls. Unlike those two "A" grade Technicolor soap operas, this film doesn't hide its garbage, and lacks the unintentional humor of those pot-boilers.

The story surrounds a drifter (Laurence Harvey) who encounters the tough-talking Jane Fonda (as "Kitty Twist", a drag name if I ever heard one...) on his way out of Texas to New Orleans to locate his former lover (Capucine) and on the way, they encounter kindly Mexican diner owner Anne Baxter (!) who takes Harvey on as a hired hand after Fonda tries to rip her off. Capucine turns up in the "dollhouse", a bordello owned by the tough Jo (Barbara Stanwyck) who has more of an interest on her than a madame/whore business relationship. Jo is so cruel that she can't even buy her legless husband a wheelchair, content to see him maneuver his way around on a wheeled plank instead. Harvey, determined to win his old love back, utilizes Kitty (convienantly now one of Jo's "girls") and Baxter for help to predictable results.

You may need a shower after watching this perverse examination of degradation. Even with engrossing performances (although Baxter's casting as a Mexican lady is a bit eye-raising) this film never rises above its filthy bottom. Stanwyck's Jo certainly garners the most attention, unashamed to be playing an extremely vicious and possessive lesbian, only revealing tenderness in her character a few brief scenes with Capucine and her distaste for men in a dramatic explosion with her pathetic husband. The reason for his missing legs is never explained, only inferred. The 25 year old Fonda's character (supposedly under-aged) is not fully developed, while Capucine gives an appropriately restrained performance as a character pretty much dead in everything but flesh. Hero Harvey seems out of sorts in a role which required more subtle brooding. Somehow, he comes off as a gentleman on the opposite side of the tracks who decided to experiment with life by slumming.