Nadine

Benton has elucidated this as far as one can, even to the point of insisting on well-lighted night exteriors.

Buford Pope (Rip Torn) is the high-roller with a scheme to exploit the new highway going through.

Vernon Hightower (Jeff Bridges) owns “a dump on the highway called the Blue Bonnet Bar” and tries to horn in.

Benton might have called the latter Hardcastle (feste Burg), but that would have been easy.

The nominal structure is related to Wyler’s Roman Holiday. Nadine (Kim Basinger) has posed for “art studies” from an Austin photographer, she reclaims them from his studio but finds they are plans for the new state highway.

She and Vernon are separated, she’s expecting.

It’s set in 1954 with a good deal of charm. The cinematography is gradually more striking in daylight exteriors until the great finale in Pope’s junkyard shows its vast precision.

Godard’s “Je vous salue, Marie” or the ruckus around it comes to mind.