Besides being the title of the movie, this is the title of the Yazoo City, Mississippi, beauty queen. The chief pretender to that throne is played by Holly Hunter, who played her also in the original play. That, of course, was before Hunter's movie career took off so vertically, and you have the suspicion at times that the play got pulled onto the screen only on her coattails. Or shoe heels. The playwright, Beth Henley, also wrote Crimes of the Heart, which will be a sufficient warning flag for some. The presence in the cast of Ann Wedgeworth, Southern Ding-a-ling Extraordinaire, will help to clue in still others. It's a movie in the gothic-grotesque tradition (sub-O'Connor, sub-McCullers) which treats of Southerners as a distinct human subspecies -- or better, a distinct subhuman subspecies. Hunter, Tim Robbins, Alfre Woodard, Scott Glenn, Trey Wilson, and Mary Steenburgen do all that's humanly possible with these people. They do not do enough, though, to ward off the frequent impression of them as chickens at feeding time, pathetically excited over Henley's scattered nuggets, and still quiveringly hopeful when all that remains is dust. Directed by Thomas Schlamme. (1989) — Duncan Shepherd