The screenplay by Gore Vidal is based on the Tennessee Williams play The Seven Descents of Myrtle, which opened on Broadway in March 1968 and ran for 29 performances.
[2] In New Orleans, Myrtle Kane and Jeb Stuart Thorington, arrive on The Rube Benedict Show where the eponymous host selects them and another couple as contestants.
Myrtle eventually shares her background in show business, as the last surviving member of an Alabama female quintet, named the Mobile Hot-Shots.
Meanwhile, Jeb, who experiences several flashbacks of his mother, and multiple threesome affairs with several prostitutes, becomes angered that his wife has not returned with the document, and marches downstairs armed with a pistol, where he ultimately burns the agreement.
After burning the agreement, Chicken reveals that he is actually the plantation's heir, through his mother rather than the "mistake" produced from an interracial extramarital affair committed by Jeb's father, who later died in World War II.
Finally, the levee breaks, forcing Chicken and Myrtle to ascend to the rooftop, to escape the surrounding floodwaters, for refuge and sexual fulfillment.
[3] A number of changes were made from the original play including making James Coburn's character straight and impotent rather than a gay transvestite.
It's the only role I've ever played of any importance"[4] The producers gave a dummy script to locals in Louisiana so they would be unaware of the interracial content.
"[9] Variety called it a "comic opera travesty" starring "all stumbling puppets manipulated by a catcher’s-mitted Lumet" and "will find whatever audience it has in those who are not yet sated on still another story of Dixie degradation.
"[10] Filmink called it "spectacularly miscast" and argued the film help bring an end to Tennessee Williams' popularity with Hollywood studios.
[11] In 1982 Lumet said "I have never seen this film a second time and would be afraid to hate it, but, on the other hand, there is a certain humor, a richness, and there are such interesting characters, that maybe I wouldn’t dislike it that much!