Saturday Night Cinema: The Long, Hot Summer (1957)

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Tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema classic feature is The Long, Hot Summer, starring Paul Newman playing the handsome vagabond Ben Quick. “Newman’s performance as Ben Quick, before the script blunts it, is as mean and keen as a cackle-edge scythe.”

What better way to say farewell to the long hot summer.

Written by one of America’s greatest novelists, William Faulkner, and directed by Martin Ritt, the movie boasts a mighty cast — Newman’s lifetime love Joanne Woodward, a larger than life (literally) “Big Daddy” Orson Welles, knock-out Lee Remick, over-ripe Angela Lansbury and the pathetic Anthony Franciosa.

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The Long, Hot Summer is a simmering story of life in the Deep South, steamy with sex and laced with violence and bawdy humor. Although the setting is Mississippi, race relations play no part; it is instead a kind of Peyton Place with the locale shifted from New England to the warmer climate and – apparently – hotter-blooded citizens. This picture is strikingly directed by Martin Ritt.

based on several of Faulkner’s short stories, is often regarded as one of the best films based on his work, though not especially accurate to the original source material. Ben Quick (Paul Newman), a sullen but self-confident drifter

The Long, Hot Summer

By Variety Staff, December 31, 1957

With:
Paul Newman Joanne Woodward Anthony Franciosa Orson Welles Lee Remick Angela Lansbury

The Long, Hot Summer is a simmering story of life in the Deep South, steamy with sex and laced with violence and bawdy humor. Although the setting is Mississippi, race relations play no part; it is instead a kind of Peyton Place with the locale shifted from New England to the warmer climate and – apparently – hotter-blooded citizens. This picture is strikingly directed by Martin Ritt.

The screenplay is based on two stories, Barn Burning and The Spotted Horses and a part of the novel, The Hamlet, all by William Faulkner. It is about a young Mississippi redneck (Paul Newman) who has a reputation for settling his grudges by setting fire to the property of those he opposes.

This notoriety follows him when he drifts into the town owned and operated by Orson Welles, a gargantuan character who has reduced the town to snivelling peonage; his one son (Anthony Franciosa) to the point where he seeks perpetual escape in the love of his pretty wife (Lee Remick); and, by his tactics, frozen his daughter (Joanne Woodward) into a premature old maid. Welles senses immediately in Newman a fellow predator and they set to trying to outdo each other in villainy and connivance.

Scriptwriters have done a phenomenal job of putting together elements of stories that are actually connected only by their core of atmosphere, Faulkner’s preoccupation with the rising redneck moneyed class and their dominance of the former aristocracy. There are still holes in the screenplay but director Martin Ritt slams over them so fast that you are not aware of any vacancies until you are past them. It is melodrama frank and unashamed. It may be preposterous but it is never dull.

Most of Long, Hot Summer was shot in Louisiana and the locations pay off in the authentic flavor well captured by cameraman Joseph LaShelle. Highlighting the diverse and contrasting moods is the fine score by Alex North.

The Long, Hot Summer

Production: Wald/20th Century-Fox. Director Martin Ritt; Producer Jerry Wald; Screenplay Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr; Camera Joseph LaShelle; Editor Louis R. Loeffler; Music Alex North; Art Director Lyle R. Wheeler, Maurice Ransford

Crew: (Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1958. Running time: 115 MIN.

With: Paul Newman Joanne Woodward Anthony Franciosa Orson Welles Lee Remick Angela Lansbury

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Philip
Philip
5 years ago

Super aprops!

Philip
Philip
5 years ago

$0.02: Buy your kids water noodles and cut them to the appropriate desired size and let them battle with them. It’s really great cardiovascular exercise for them and with appropriate supervision, you can teach them basic self-defense principles without anyone getting hurt. It’s almost impossible to injure anything with a styrofoam water noodle.

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago

Misnamed. Should have been called The Long Hot Simmer. 😉 Except the link won’t play. Used another browser.

GeneP54
GeneP54
5 years ago

Why would you say, “Although the setting is Mississippi, race relations play no part;”?? Do you think EVERYTHING about Mississippi is related to race relations?

Awe… geez….. I thought you were better than this.. to stereotype Mississippi and to bring up race when your very sentence says it has NOTHING to do with it. Don’t you complain about others doing this very thing??

I’m pretty disgusted.

poetcomic1
poetcomic1
5 years ago
Reply to  GeneP54

Small town Southern blacks and whites lived and worked together, (for all the problems and injustice) in a way totally alien to the segregated Democratic welfare ghettos of the North.

Poptoy1949
Poptoy1949
5 years ago
Reply to  poetcomic1

This is very True. But all of that is gone Thanks to Political Correctness.

GeneP54
GeneP54
5 years ago
Reply to  poetcomic1

I have a picture taken from a small rural school (that I went to) of a class that was to graduate in the early 70’s. It was probably taken in the mid 60’s. White and black kids all in the same class, and NO problems.

It was a concept that the Northerners just couldn’t grasp. They only accepted integration when it was forced, not passive.

Pantalones
Pantalones
5 years ago
Reply to  GeneP54

I heard in elementary school they called you “The Gayness”.

GeneP54
GeneP54
5 years ago
Reply to  Pantalones

At recess yesterday?

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
5 years ago
Reply to  Pantalones

Inane comment, sir. Says much more about you than Gene.

Pantalones
Pantalones
5 years ago

Shush ????

Poptoy1949
Poptoy1949
5 years ago
Reply to  GeneP54

Mississippi has produced some people of quality and intelligence that impacted American Culture in more than one way. Elvis Presley, Tennessee Williams the playwright, William Faulkner that wrote the book that led to this Movie being made, And John Grisham the author just to name a few. If you want to talk about Racism don’t forget about Obama and his wife Michael.

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
5 years ago
Reply to  GeneP54

Why would you say, “Although the setting is Mississippi, race relations play no part;”?

Who is you, Gene? That comment came from a film review from 1957. It is standard practice for Pamela to include a review from when a film debuted.

GeneP54
GeneP54
5 years ago

Anyone.

It’s disgusting that Pamela would reprint it. I’m sure there are other reviews out there that don’t make such statements.

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
5 years ago
Reply to  GeneP54

No, it is not “disgusting” that Pamela would print it. It is a realistic example of the tenor of the time. Your comment is an example of snowflake mentality in action.

GeneP54
GeneP54
5 years ago

Far from it. If it was your home state and it was constantly associated with racism, but you knew that wasn’t the truth, if you had any guts you’d react to it, too. Or..maybe YOU’RE the snowflake!
Were you there then? Do you know that to be fact? Yea.. I didn’t think so.

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
5 years ago
Reply to  GeneP54

it was your home state and it was constantly associated with racism, but you knew that wasn’t the truth …

Gene, I am fully aware that racism is not all there is or was to Mississippi and that the Deep South has too-often been portrayed through a single-minded lens. I am an admirer of the late PD East (you do know who he was, right?).

But don’t try to deny the history of racism that is part of that legacy. Try reading East’s “The Magnolia Jungle” if you are not convinced- the only people who remained cordial to East in, I think, Hattiesburg were the small Jewish community.

The issue between us is whether or not Pamela was being “disgusting” in re-printing a film review from the time and does indeed reflect something of popular culture at the time.

Best to you,

LS

GeneP54
GeneP54
5 years ago

lol I don’t need to read anything to tell me about race in Mississippi. I have lived it. Have you ever even been there?? And yet you’re going to tell me all about race in Mississippi. LOL

What about the riots in Boston when they integrated there? They had to put police on the school buses. We didn’t. They had rioting in the streets. We didn’t.
Mississippi isn’t the only place to have racial tensions. Look at Baltimore. Look at St. Louis. Look at Philly. Look at NY. Look at Watts. Our racial tensions happened when outsiders came in and created it. It started with the carpetbaggers and it goes on today. We’ve just gotten stuck with the label. Don’t try to deny that, in truth, we’ve had less racial discourse than most of the rest of the country. It’s the perception and stereotyping that we can’t fight, not racial tensions.

As far as disgusting, I’m just as free to have my opinion as you are to have yours and you have no right to try to silence me on it. You certainly may disagree, but I still have a right to voice it. What would have been nice was if you had recognized from the beginning that I have that right and just let me say what I wanted. I didn’t ask for your approval. It means nothing to me… and less now that you’ve presented it.
Best to you, too.

poetcomic1
poetcomic1
5 years ago

Newman had a gift for sassy, get-down dialogue that was DELICIOUS. He just needed a worthy sparring partner. Here it is Orson Welles and Joanne Woodward. In Hud it was Patricia Neal.

Maranatha
Maranatha
5 years ago

Joan Woodward and Lee Remick together in the same film??
That’s a treat not to be missed.
..

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
5 years ago
Reply to  Maranatha

It’s Joanne Woodward.

D A
D A
5 years ago
Reply to  Maranatha

Do they mud wrestle … ;- )

Liatris Spicata
Liatris Spicata
5 years ago

Now I’ve been known to have my differences with the mistress of this here site, but I gotta say one thing:

She sure knows how to pick ‘em.

John Nosser
John Nosser
5 years ago

The county courthouse shown in the scenery looks like the one in Hernando, Mississippi. All towns in the old days surrounded the courthouse. In modern times fast growing towns and cities grow chaotically with no central square.

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