This, almost-lost, possessed romantic comedy is playing alongside To Sleep With Anger as part of ‘Two by Charles Burnett’, showcasing the legendary L.A. Rebellion director’s mischievous approach to mainstream filmmaking in the 1990s.  

In a quiet Los Angeles boarding house, an unlikely romance develops between eccentrics Obadiah ‘Fish’ Johnson (James Earl Jones) and Flower ‘Poinsettia’ Cummings (Lynn Redgrave). Fish is newly released from a mental institution despite his regular physical wrestling matches with his demon, Hank. Poinsettia, prone to belting out arias from Madame Butterfly, contends with her own invisible partner, the ghost of the composer Giacomo Puccini, to whom she is engaged to be married. All this unfolds under the loving eye of the matron of the house, Mrs Muldroone, played almost unrecognisably by Margot Kidder.