In a dusty, under-populated California resort town, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), a naïve and impressionable Southern waif begins her life as a nursing home attendant. There, Pinky finds her role model in fellow nurse “Thoroughly Modern” Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall), a misguided would-be sophisticate and hopeless devotee of Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Day magazines. When Millie accepts Pinky into her home at the Purple Sage singles complex, Pinky’s hero-worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, Robert Altman’s dreamlike masterpiece, 3 Women, careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.
Cast
| Millie Lammoreaux | Shelley Duvall |
| Pinky Rose | Sissy Spacek |
| Willy Hart | Janice Rule |
| Edgar Hart | Robert Fortier |
| Mrs. Rose | Ruth Nelson |
| Mr. Rose | John Cromwell |
| Ms. Bunweill | Sierra Pecheur |
| Dr. Maas | Craig Richard Nelson |
| Doris | Maysie Hoy |
| Alcira | Belita Moreno |
| Polly | Leslie Ann Hudson |
| Peggy | Patricia Ann Hudson |
Credits
| Director | Robert Altman |
| Director of photography | Chuck Rosher |
| Music | Gerald Busby |
| Editing | Dennis Hill |
| Art director | James D. Vance |
| Production executive / First assistant director | Tommy Thompson |
| Associate producers | Robert Eggenweiller and Scott Bushnell |
| Murals | Bodhi Wind |
by David Sterritt
Feb 5, 2010
Robert Altman: The Oral Biography (Knopf) begins with an epigram that pretty well sums up Altman’s attitude toward “truth” and “realism” in cinema and life. “I don’t think anybody remembers the truth, the facts,” the great filmmaker said. “You remember impressions.” . . .
by David Sterritt
Apr 19, 2004
“Sometimes I feel like little Eva, running across the ice…with the dogs yapping at my ass,” Robert Altman said in 1976, the year before 3 Women debuted. “Maybe the reason I’m doing all this is so I can get a lot done before they catch up with me.” Altman certainly worked at a tremendous . . .