The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

Sadly Over-hyped

Lack of good storyline.

How sad is this?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

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.

I have mixed feelings about this film. It's not the movie's fault that the author (William Faulkner and others) seem to like to provide shades of Lillian Hellman.But, the biggest issue I have here with the acting is Orson Welles. In some scenes, his characterization seems right on target. In other scenes he seems to he hamming it up to the point of creating a cliché of the character. His makeup doesn't help any. That's not to say I didn't enjoy him here. I'm fat, and always feel better when I see someone who is about twice as fat as me. ;-) I never really saw the attraction with Paul Newman. Not a bad actor, nor a great actor. It depended a lot on the quality of the film he was in. I felt pretty much the same about Joanne Woodward. They're both "good" here.Anthony Franciosa is another actor I never cared much for, but with him I'm not neutral. To me he's on the negative side of things, and this film didn't change my mind. Although I will say that the role of a spoiled young man fit him well.On the other hand,I've always felt Lee Remick was a fine actress, and I wish her part here had been more involved.So the plot goes like this: tyrannical Southern father (Welles) tries to control everything and everyone. A drifter type (Newman) comes to town and weaves his way into the family with lust and a thirst for power. He pushes aside a son (Franciosa) through his scheming.The problem with the concept of this film -- at least for me -- is that the presence of a "senior scoundrel" (Welles) doesn't make me root anymore for the "junior scoundrel" (Newman). About all it shows me is that there's almost no major character here who is very likable and to root for. All the men here are ne'er-do-well. It's not a very pretty picture, so to speak.This film is not so much a long, hot summer as a long, plodding tepid slog. And at the end of the slog, somehow all these low class people live happily ever after. Appalling.

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.

A drifter comes into a Mississippi town and is taken under the wing of the town big shot in this drama based on multiple works of Faulkner. Newman is solid as an ambitious worker trying to escape his past. Welles steals the film in a wonderfully hammy performance as a larger-than-life character who rules over not only his two meek children but also the entire town. Franciosa is fine as Welles's wimpy son, but Woodward's performance seems somewhat wooden. Remick is given little to do except look pretty, which she does well. In the first of six films he made with Newman, Ritt creates an atmosphere befitting the title. The plot element concerning fire-starting is rather silly.