The Ballad of the Sad Café

Streaming video - 1991

Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Carradine, and Rod Steiger star in this adaptation of the Carson McCullers novella. Merchant Ivory veteran Simon Callow’s only turn as a director is a twisted Southern Gothic dark comedy set in a rural town in the deep South. Redgrave plays Miss Amelia, the eccentric proprietor of the town’s only café and, more importantly to her grip on the townsfolk, the owner of a secret moonshine still. Her domineering hold on the town is threatened when two strangers appear.