The Grass Harp Details

This adaptation of Truman Capote's autobiographical novel from director Charles Matthau may be old-fashioned, but it also has the polish that used to make studio pictures so irresistible. This may be down to the fact that the script is co-written by Hollywood veteran Stirling Silliphant, but it's the exceptional ensemble cast that gives this memoir of a Deep South childhood in the late 1930s its charm. As the chalk-and-cheese sisters who raise orphan Edward Furlong, Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek bind together the episodic narrative. They also give the film a credibility that makes Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau's more outrageous performances delightful rather than damaging.

The American South, a town full of eccentrics, the late '30s - and Furlong is the chap with the growing up to do when... read more on Time Out