The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

“Life's been a real bitch to Beatrice Hunsdorfer. And vice versa.”

Beatrice Hunsdorfer (Joanne Woodward), a widow raising two daughters in a house she can barely keep up, dreams of opening an elegant tea room she has no money to start. Her older girl Ruth (Roberta Wallach) is epileptic and defiant, while Matilda (Nell Newman) feeds her pets and tests how radium affects marigolds for a school project. Paul Newman directs his wife and daughter in a household where the only tenderness runs between the sisters.