all concerned did their best work here.

The film had its faults, but the acting was genius, and it was one of the best adaptions from book, ever.

Hackett is good but I don't feel she overshadows the others.

Shirley Knight displays a number of affectations (her method acting shows up here and there, especially in a few stilted line readings) but she is generally perfect. The bulk of the movie eventually swings to her. And I do enjoy her work here very much. (Note she once irritated Pauline Kael though, who wrote "can't she find another prop besides her hair ?" !)

Candice Bergen started off pretty well in the movies, considering her film weak career later. I love her perfect speech patterns here, down to the way she briskly tells the cab driver, with just a soupcon of impatience, to "go ahead !". Plus, the way she crisply intones "perhaps you spare me a cliche like heart of hearts, Dottie...?" is heaven.

Joanna Pettet does not quite personify the Kay of the original novel but she is terrific anyway. She has quite a gamut to run through and hits all the highs and lows quite well.

Jessica Walters is an exaggerated Libby but she's pretty exaggerated in the book also, and she does know how to steal a scene ! ("Imagine our Priss...tonight !!"")

Elizabeth Hartman is typecast but her line readings expertly capture the alternately bold and pathologically shy Priss. (Still, I implore everyone who only knows her as a limpid mouse to see her great turn as a psycho go-go dancer in "You're A Big Boy Now," also out in 1966).

Mary Robin Redd is a hoot and I am amazed she didn't go more places.

Kathleen Widdoes is terrific, and I love her overall look and poise. Her meeting with Norine (Carrie Nye) is a great scene (still, it's much much better in the book, esp. when she ends up angrily telling Norine to wash the ring from the bathtub, and off her neck too !).

And speaking of Carrie Nye - oh, if only she had more scenes. She does make the most of them.

I also enjoy that aging flapper at the wedding party and Dottie's cool-toned mother.

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Though I wish the film had gone into a little more depth re the politics of the era (as the book did) overall, I thought the film a good adaptation....not to mention a rare "women's film" in an era when male oriented entertainment (like the James Bond films and The Great Escape) were more the norm...
I like Joanna Pettet, but I think she lacked the intensity the role required....Also, even in the book, Kay is a very problematic character; not altogether likeable, but definitely a kind of American archetype of a driven young woman leaving the sticks to make her own way in the world....her affectations are definitely a sign of those times,amd though we may not like her phoniness, we should understand her a little more. I wish they had been able to coax Diane Varsi (Alison MacKenzie in the film Peyton Place); she would have been a natural for Kay.
Joan Hackett, who never got enough film work for my liking, WAS Dottie: the voice,the mannerisms, everyhting.
Candace Bergen, who was vilified by the critics at the time, was quite effective. The character of Lakey was one of the few positive representations of lesbianism in the era (actually,the ONLY postive one from that era that I know of).
All these young ladies graduated from Vassar and, because of the sexism of the era, most had to severely compromise their ambitions (ironically the most conventional, Kay, and the nost unconventional, Lakey, probably are the most successful in achieving their goals). Kay's death symbolizes, not just the death of an era and a loss of innocence for her friends but also the coming of a new era, the Second World War, a time when their education and talents will be severely tested.

I've always loved the entire cast in this film and in the 1939 version of 'The Women'. Joan Hackett's star went out much too soon!

Just for the record, I'm not a Dude, I'm a Dudette!

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