Word: lila
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Literally and figuratively, the Wingos of "Colleton, S.C.," are crazy about one another. Father Henry is a shrimper whose feelings for his family are well disguised with verbal and physical abuse. His wife Lila despises his brutality and low status and dreams of moving up in Colleton society. Eldest Son Luke, the Rambo of the salt marshes, returns from Viet Nam to wage a one- man guerrilla war against the construction of plutonium production plants. Brother Tom is an ex-high school football coach struggling with the aftermath of a nervous breakdown and a failing marriage. His twin sister Savannah...
Conroy is also effective when exploring the injuries of class. Small- town South Carolina is a hothouse of humiliations for a family like the Wingos. Lila's bids for membership in the Colleton League are repeatedly turned down; the boys are teased about their unfashionable clothes. All but Henry, jailed for smuggling dope on his boat, have their vindications. Lila divorces Henry and marries the town's richest citizen; Luke and Tom become high school football heroes, and Savannah writes The Shrimper's Daughter, becomes famous and moves north to live in Greenwich Village as a lesbian...
...perhaps even Mark Twain, if Dr. Lowenstein's couch is considered as a raft on which Jew and Gentile drift toward enlightenment. There is also a reckless blend of Bobbsey Twins adventure and revenge fantasies usually associated with drive-in-movie horror festivals. Would you believe that after Lila, Savannah and Tom are raped by three escaped convicts, the family's pet Bengal tiger bursts in and rips the criminals into small pieces? Would you believe that no one finds out about this because Lila insists on cleaning up the mess before Henry comes home? What you can believe...
...keep the plot nice and confused, Coppola has composed a parallel sub-story starring Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines) a tap dancer at the club, who also falls in love with a showgirl William's beloved. Lila Rose Oliver (Lonette Mckee), is stuck in racial limbo, because she can pass as both a white and a black woman, threatening her relationship with the Sandman...
...reminiscent of old gangster films in the worst sense, particularly surprising coming from the man who made films like "The Godfather." Coppola and his cohorts provide almost no basis for the romantic entanglements that we are expected to believe. The Sandman falls in love with the lovely, leggy Lila Rose when he first sees her. "Will you marry me?" he asks impulsively. This one, searing sentence is the only expression of the couple's love...