Friendships, Secrets And Lies (1979)

When a sorority house is being demolished in order to make way for a parking lot, the remains of a baby skeleton are found. The six women (Stella Stevens, Paula Prentiss, Tina Louise, Shelley Fabares, Loretta Swit, Cathryn Damon) who lived there the summer when the baby was killed/aborted reflect on that summer and who among them was responsible. Based on the novel THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN by Babs H. Deal and directed by Marlene Laird and Anne Zane Shanks. Though the film is rather antiquated in contemporary terms on such subjects as homosexuality (one character proclaims she couldn't have had a baby because she's a lesbian) and domestic violence (another character stays with the brutish husband who beats her up), the film itself seems to be a feminist plea on a woman's right to choose and the right to safe abortions. Interestingly, like the 1939 THE WOMEN, there are no males in the film. It's an all female cast and indeed, heavily female behind the camera with two women directors, a woman writer, a female editor, a woman composer and art director, too. The film's inept screenplay defeats most of the actresses (most notably Tina Louise) and only Prentiss manages to rise above the mediocrity of the writing to bring some depth to her character. With Sondra Locke as an opportunistic feminist news reporter who rides over the six women's feelings in order to further her own agenda.