“Laura Smiles” is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman’s mental breakdown. We are introduced to “Laura” at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate. These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her “suburban drudgery” triggers the past — in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play– she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

In this film based on a Neil Simon play, newlyweds Corie, a free spirit, and Paul Bratter, an uptight lawyer, share a sixth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village. Soon after their marriage, Corie tries to find a companion for mother, Ethel, who is now alone, and sets up Ethel with neighbor Victor. Inappropriate behavior on a double date causes conflict, and the young couple considers divorce.