Watch The Long, Hot Summer For Free

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Producer: Jerry Wald. Copyright 1958 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening simultaneously at the Fine Arts and the Mayfair: 3 April 1958. U.S. release: March 1958. U.K. release: 8 June 1958. Australian release: 12 June 1958. Sydney opening at the Regent. 10,507 feet. 116 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Mississippian Ben Quick, like his late father, is reputed to be a quick-tempered man who settles his scores by barn-burning. As such, young Quick must constantly be one step ahead of his unsavory reputation. He arrives in Frenchman's Creek, a sleepy small town ruled over with an iron hand by bulbous Will Varner, a man who has easily cowed his weak-willed son Jody, but not his frustrated, spinsterish daughter Clara. Quick hires on as a sharecropper to Varner, the latter discovering after assorted clashes of will with the virile farmer that Quick might just well be the best man to wed Clara and inherit the vast Varner holdings. Meanwhile, Clara, long since tired of coping with her mother-dominated fiancé, Alan Stewart, finds herself attracted to Quick, but refuses to allow her father to railroad her into a hasty marriage with the brash upstart. She has her pride.NOTES: Paul Newman's first film with director Martin Ritt and his first with soon wife-to-be Joanne Woodward. Joanne was nominated for the year's Best Actress award, losing to Susan Hayward in "I Want To Live!" Paul Newman was declared the year's Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie rated Number 8 in the Film Daily's annual poll of American film critics. Other "Ten Best" inclusions are: Number 4, New York Daily News; Number 4, National Board of Review; Number 10, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; tied for number 10, Filmfacts composite list. Also included in the New York Journal American's "Ten Best" alphabetical list.COMMENT: "The Long Hot Summer" is a long, long film and despite all its awards, a dull, dull, dull one at that, with some of the ripest overacting of some of the thinnest, least interesting and totally non-involving material. Hardly anything happens but that the characters stand around and talk, talk, talk.Orson Welles, it's true, stands out from the crowd. He tries a slight variation. Instead of talking away, just articulating his lines, he rants, but in such a mumbled voice it is sometimes hard to catch half of what he is actually saying — not that it matters, since what he is going on about is of no interest anyhow. Newman just pours on the charm, Woodward makes with the neuroses, Anderson is a stiff dummy, Franciosa flutters and fidgets. Lee Remick has a small, totally unimportant role. At one stage when she tells Franciosa to get himself another interest, the movie looks like maturing into something but absolutely nothing comes of it.The script is actually like one of those soap operas in which the characters snap at each other for 90 minutes and then simply because time is up, walk away smilingly arm-in-arm. The story is not only dull and unbelievable, it doesn't make sense. Marty Ritt's ultra dull, extremely pedestrian direction doesn't help either.Technically the film falls short too — the photography is fuzzy, special effects obviously contrived and pickup shots poorly integrated, film editing sluggish. The pace is slow. In fact, the film is a bore in just about every department. Even a bit of location work cannot excite much interest.

A wealthy local tyrant in the deep South runs roughshod over his son and daughter until an equally sharp stranger drifts into town. For better or worse, this 2-hour movie has about all the earmarks of a 1950's A-production. Consider the following: wide-screen Technicolor, (no little b&w TV here); strong acting, (the New York Method has invaded Hollywood); a sex suffused plot, (just don't go beyond kissing); a contrived happy ending, (send the audience home feeling good); and no thought-provoking politics (there's a Cold War going on). All of these are present in spades in this slick production, marking results very much a creature of the time.I can see why the devilish Ben Quick amounts to Newman's breakout part. I expect girls were swooning in the aisles. That combination of manly chest, deep blue eyes, and tricky smile must have struck deep from Maine to California. I like the way the screenplay builds Ben's battle of wits with old man Varner (Welles) into mutual respect. They're like two circling foxes that may not like each other, but a mutual shrewdness commands respect. On the other hand, Woodward's Clara presents an apt contrast to both Dad and Ben. Woodward's excellent as the proudly self-contained Varner daughter. The actress makes her resistance to the assured Ben not only believable but compelling. Considering what must have been going on off-camera between the soon-to-be-marrieds, makes Woodward's on-camera distance a real accomplishment. All in all, Clara's may not a glamorous role, but it is a pivotal one.Then there's Welles as the obnoxious paterfamilias and local tyrant. To say he over-does his role would understate the result. But, according to IMDb's trivia, he's not about to let this bevy of Method graduates overshadow the great man. (Contrast his version of a big daddy with Burl Ives' calibrated version in the thematically similar Cat on a Hot Tin Roof {1958}). Frankly, I thought Franciosa miscast as the weakling son, Jody. The actor's natural forte is a strong personality. To me, his efforts here strike a sometimes hollow note. There's no really cohesive plot. Instead the narrative is more like an album of how a dysfunctional family finally comes together. The production does a good job of providing authentic southern background, filming extensively in Louisiana. Those dirt roads the horses escape on are both revealing and atmospheric. Then there's Richard Anderson's enigmatic Alan Stewart. His stiffly proper bearing remains an interesting wild card in the mix. It's not clear, to say the least, why he rejects marriage to the willing Clara (Woodward) and life on easy street. The screenplay sort of implies he's a mama's boy, but that doesn't come through in the dramatics. My guess is that he's, oh my gosh, gay, a topic that 50's Hollywood could not safely broach, but would explain his behavior with Clara. On the other side of the coin, is Lee Remick's wanton little Eula. With her low-cut frocks, I was hoping director Ritt would find more reasons for her to lean over before the camera. Oh well, the teasing titillation is also very much indicative of the time.Anyway, the movie's generally over-heated but still entertaining, with colorful characters, and sometimes sharp dialog. Maybe most importantly, it's the first of Newman's rascally characters that he would later raise to a near art form.

A Pride and Prejudice love story sited in Mississippi in the 1940s, can only cover half of this film's hub, directed by the famous "Orson tamer" Martin Ritt (MURPHY'S ROMANCE, 7/10), the other half is about a rough-diamond father's eagerness to marry off his maiden daughter and give an impetus to his incompetent son. The story impresses with a contingent proposition of provincial male chauvinism and women's self-liberated modern viewing, but a gratifying finale dents its eloquence and leaves a sour taste of bathos. First of all, it is the first-collaboration of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward couple, crowned a BEST ACTOR trophy for Newman in Cannes and the follow-up to Woodward Oscar-winning role in THE THREE FACES OF EVE (1957, 7/10), thus, a chief delightfulness hinges on their chemistry in their battle of wits as a charming but reckless suitor Ben Quick (Newman), an infamous barn- burner, and the demure but strong-mined rich lass Clara Varner (Woodard), and as we expected, the sparkle is tantalizingly ignited through their first scene together, Clara is driving with her sister-in-law Eula (the young and chirpy Lee Remick), who is talking to the hitchhiker Ben in quick fire ebullience, yet, Ben's focus is solely on Clara, whose dismissive attitude intrigues him and for men in a motion picture, this is the one worth conquering. Soon here comes the local big enchilada, Will Varner (Clara's father, a port Orson Welles) is back from hospital, resolves to find a suitor for Clara, he shapes a proxy father-and-son relationship with Ben, which instigate the rancor from his own son Jody (Franciosa), Will is a leading role for certain (strangely Welles is fourth billed), at the age of 43, Welles has to act out an old man of 61, with a little help from a senior makeup, a fake nose and his authentic stoutness, anyhow, it is a convincing job, although one should be prepared not to be shocked during his first entrance. Adapted from William Faulkner's novel, The Hamlet amalgamating with his stories Barn Burning and The Spotted Horses, the film at its best when spinning out a poor-boy-rich-girl romance with perky momentum, and at its worst, when the patriarchal arrogance pervading with its stale stench of prejudices diminish women's worth without any hint of redemption. It might be a rural leaning reflecting the reality then, but take the example of the excruciatingly designed role of Minnie Littlejojn (Lansbury), it is an agony of miscast and a smug snide on the gender-biased gold-diggers, not a sign for its future audience. Moreover, a more mystifying evasion is the ambiguity belies the true color of the mommy boy Alan Stewart (Anderson), for whom a wishful-thinking Clara falls for 6 years. Lastly, the set piece where Ben dupes Jody into digging ancient coins is a far-fetched plot device never rings plausible under any circumstances.

When I was young, I read The Sound and the Fury and a couple of novellas (Old Man, The Bear) by Faulkner. I conceived a dislike of this man's writing that has stayed with me until this day. His tortured prose makes that of late Henry James a pleasure to read in comparison. Faulkner writes as though he were telling Homeric legends, but without the clarity and simplicity of Homer. The script fashioned by Ravetch and Frank out of various stories has the great benefit of humor and a kind of easy sexuality that is very enjoyable to watch.The Jody Varner character makes no sense--how can he be virile with Eula and impotent with his father? Franciosa seems very unsure of himself in every scene. Ben Quick and Clara have such a great time together: Newman and Woodward are establishing a rapport that would last 50 years. The story needed a convincing patriarch, and there was no-one better than Orson Welles to play Varner. I don't care if his make up was shoddy or his accent virtually incomprehensible, he is wonderful. I could have given it 10, had there not been inconsistencies of plot and characterization.