Alan Arkin plays John Singer – a deaf mute in a small Southern American town. His only friend is Sprio Antonapoulos (Chuck McCann), another deaf mute who is also mentally disabled and who is eventually shipped off to a state hospital.
In order to be nearer to his friend, Singer moves to another, larger town.
There he meets an anxious teenage girl called Mick (Sondra Locke in her feature film debut) and forms a close relationship with her. He also does his best to help semi-alcoholic drifter Jake Blount (Stacy Keach) and Dr Copeland (Percy Rodriguez), a cancer-ridden white-hating black doctor.
Just by being kind, Singer brings some light into the lives of his new friends. But there seems to be no one who can appreciate Singer’s own problems.
Helping others, he learns, has great but limited therapeutic effects. He fails nobody, but in the end, everybody fails him.
Arkin is good but does overdo some aspects of his role. Sondra Locke makes a most impressive screen debut.
Percy Rodriguez as the first proud, then humiliated doctor, is also good. Both Arkin and Locke earned Academy Award nominations for their performances.
The photography is unusually excellent – Selma, Alabama, is presented in all its Southern charm and splendour – and while the film is over two hours long, it never seems to drag.
The film was adapted from a 1940 novel by Carson McCullers.
John Singer
Alan Arkin
Spiro Antonapoulos
Chuck McCann
Spirmonedes
Peter Mamakos
Beaudine
John O’Leary
Margaret “Mick” Kelly
Sondra Locke
Mr Kelly
Biff McGuire
Mrs Kelly
Laurinda Barrett
Bubber Kelly
Jackie Marlowe
Ralph
Robbie Barnes
Harry Minowitz
Wayne Smith
Sucker
Richard Fingar
Delores
Sherri Vise
Spareribs
Gavin Paulin
Dr Benedict Copeland
Percy Rodriguez
Portia Copeland
Cicely Tyson
Willie
Johnny Popwell
Horace Oates Jr
Himself
Jake Blount
Stacy Keach
Brannon
Hubert Harper
Dr Gordon
Don Swafford
Nurse Bradford
Anna Lee Carroll
Deputy Sheriff Ivor
Ronald A. Riner
Director
Robert Ellis Miller