It obviously helped Lurleen Lumpkin Beverly D'Angelo's career since she went from this to playing the Patsy Cline to Sissy Spacek's Oscar-winning Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter.
I still don't necessarily believe in this case that a movie that tried to copy the play more closely would have been more successful. Godspell tried to do that and flopped. This movie at least holds up as a movie and plays exceptionally well on the big screen, as the Castro Theatre in SF got a...