THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS

Joanne Woodward gives a tour-de-force performance as the slatternly widow with two teenage daughters in hubbie Paul Newman's superb screen version of Paul Zindel's Pulitzer Prize winning play "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds". Unfortunately, the title wasn't a crowd puller, (no, it's not a sci-fi film), and while it now has something of a cult following it was never the success it deserved to be. It's funny and sad in equal measure and Nell Potts, (Newman and Woodward's own daughter), and Roberta Wallach, (daughter of Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson), are both excellent as the daughters.

Of course, we are in William Inge territory here but whereas Inge had a tendency to get hysterical Zindel was more prone to surreal eccentricity, (Alvin Sargent did the superb adaptation), and Newman has opened it out beautifully. In a just world this would be thought of as an American classic and Woodward would have picked up at least another Oscar nomination but we don't live in a just world and this isn't well-known. Nevertheless, it is a classic and it shouldn't be missed.