A young lawyer, Steve Mundine (Lee Majors, TV's "The Six Million Dollar Man"), and his wife, Nella (Barbara Hershey, Beaches), move to Tennessee to work in his Uncle Oman's law firm. Under his nephew's pressure, Oman Hedgepath (Lee J. Cobb, the Exorcist, the Garment Jungle) agrees to represent L.B. Jones (Roscoe Lee Browne), a wealthy black undertaker who intends to divorce his wife, Emma (Lola Falana), for adultery with Willie Joe Worth (Anthony Zerbe), a white policeman. But small-town southern law is not genteel when sex and race intersect. In his last film, director William Wyler (The Best Years of Our Lives, Roman Holiday) explores a darker period in American history with an excellent cast that includes Yaphet Kotto, Fayard Nicholas, Chill Wills, Arch Johnson and Dub Taylor.