NEW ORLEANS MOURNING

An overlong study of elitism and racism among the New Orleans privileged--one of whom, nabob Chauncey St. Amant, is shot during Mardi Gras by a Dolly Patton look-alike. The grieving widow, a chronic alcoholic, was supposedly in the ladies' room while her husband was shot; daughter Marcelle was trysting with a married deadbeat; son Henry, a cross-dresser, had stepped out for a breath of air; and family friend Tolliver Albert--who once loved the widow and now loves (well, sort of) Henry--had lurched to take a pill during a dizzy spell. Meanwhile, Skip Langdon, a school chum of Marcelle's, is assigned to the case. Between her falling in love with a handsome Steven Steinman, who fortuitously filmed the parade just as Amant was shot; ignoring the homicide cops also working the case (they wish her back in traffic); and pestering everybody, Skip uncovers Amant's lust for his secretaries--all of them, including one who had his child and several of whom were (heavens!) black. Skip's sleuthing eventually leads to one suicide, and a tawdry retelling of the widow's past, which included a birthmark never seen before on a white baby. With some clever pokes at upper-crust New Orleans and its pretensions, but rendered by a mediocre stylist (Huckleberry Fiend, 1987, etc.).