From the 1950s: The Long, Hot Summer

1958 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring
Paul Newman
Joanne Woodward
Anthony Franciosa
Orson Welles
Lee Remick
Angela Lansbury
Richard Anderson
Mabel Albertson

The movie gained some fame for a number of reasons.  One was a series of sexually suggestive scenes that, once again, is a curiosity as to how they got through the censors.  Another is the notoriety that was caused by the constant bickering between the director and one of his actors.  The third is this is considered one of those fine early Paul Newman movies.  And lastly was the fact that fans and Hollywood alike were caught up in the real-life romance of Newman and Joanne Woodward.  This is the first and only one of their 11 films together where they weren't married while making it.  After the wrap the couple left the Clinton, Louisiana location for Las Vegas where they got married.

One of the premier Southern authors, William Faulkner, wrote a novel, The Hamlet, and also a novella, Spotted Horses, and a short story, Barn Burning, which married screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. combined into this screenplay.  It concerns an accused barn burner, Ben Quick, who is run out of town for something he didn't do.

He is picked up by two women in a convertible, sisters-in-law Clara Varner (Woodward) and Eula Varner (Lee Remick).  As they drive through town Ben sees Varner this and Varner that on storefronts and most everywhere he looks.  He thinks this family may be one that will be able to provide him with some wages.

He shows up at the Varner mansion and realizes that Clara wants nothing to do with him.  When he inquires about employment, she directs him to the foreman although he ends up speaking with son Jody (Anthony Franciosa), who is just getting his clothes adjusted from a romp with wife Eula.  Jody hires Ben to do manual labor around a dilapidated home on the property.

Jody, we quickly learn, is overlooked by his baron father, and is usually defiant and jealous of everyone who grabs his father's attention.  Of course, Jody is leery of Ben and soon becomes jealous.  When the father Will Varner (Orson Welles) meets Ben, he is struck by the younger man's outspokenness and confidence.  He thinks Ben should run one of his stores in town.  He also thinks Ben should marry his spinster daughter.

Clara, having a chaste relationship with a neighboring mama's boy Alan (Richard Anderson) that she knows is going nowhere, resents her father's attempts to manipulate her life and relationship and likes to remind him that she is the rebellious daughter not the suck-up son.

Ben tries hard to win over Clara (you slam a door in a fella's face before he even knocks on it.) and gets rebuffed and slapped for his efforts.  He does finally make some headway around the same time that Jody, at wit's end over his father dismissive attitude, finds Will tending to a newborn foal in the barn and locks the barn doors and sets it on fire.  Ultimately he lets him out and old Will, rather than being furious, finds redemption in his son for having a backbone and finally they find love and acceptance.

At the finale the family is on the front porch crowing about ain't life grand.  Jody and Eula have to excuse themselves for another romp.  Will seems willing to settle down with Minnie (Angela Lansbury), his standby from town, and Ben and Clara make goo-goo eyes as the colorful drama comes to an end.

I always found the film immensely entertaining and still do.  However, five months after its release came Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also about a rich, dysfunctional, southern family with a large-sized patriarch and also starring Newman.  I've heard the screenwriters borrowed some ideas from Cat, which I think is one of the finest movies ever made but that doesn't mean The Long, Hot Summer can't stand proudly on its own as the robust, bold, lusty offering it is.

Martin Ritt became known for directing socially-conscious films (I would not consider this movie as being one of those) and he had been involved in plays and leftist politics in the 30s.  When the Red Scare raised its ugly head in the early 50s, Ritt was blacklisted.  He became an instructor at the Actors Studio with Newman and Woodward being two of his famous students.  While we're at it, Franciosa and Remick also later attended.  Ritt came to the movies in 1957, directing a good film noir, Edge of the City, with Sidney Poitier and John Cassavetes, and the same year, No Down Payment, which starred Woodward.

He expected that working with his pals on The Long, Hot Summer would be a breeze and it was anything but.  The problem?  Orson Welles.  If a book were ever written about the acrimony between stars and directors, the Ritt-Welles relationship would certainly be included.  Fox and others in Hollywood stayed tuned on a daily basis of the brouhaha on the set.

Welles was always a force of nature... some preferred to say a giant pain in the ass.  He was a dictatorial troublemaker who, although a director himself, could rarely take direction without causing chaos.  He took issue with the Actors Studio troop... what they knew, what they espoused, how they approached acting was totally foreign to him.

Lansbury, who had all her scenes with Welles, said the heat made him particularly irritable and he would sweat so much his false nose would start sliding off his face.  Cut.  She also said, and I couldn't agree more, that he could not be understood in the first half of the film because of his mumbling.  He likely did it on purpose to annoy Ritt which it certainly did.  

One might question why Welles made the film at all but he needed to work in projects he had little respect or enthusiasm for to finance his own films.  The pet project of the moment was Touch of Evil which occupied all his time on this film.  He told Ritt he hadn't the time or interest in memorizing his lines and Ritt should just edit them in later.  To his credit, he did send Ritt a letter of apology sometime later.

As for the acting, the entire cast knocked out high-class performances.  Newman was on his way to perfecting the sexy iconoclast as Woodward was with repressed characters.

The year before Franciosa and Remick worked together in A Face in the Crowd and in 1971 she and Newman played husband and wife in Sometimes a Great Notion.  In 1975 Newman, Woodward and Franciosa costarred in The Drowning Pool.  Newman and Ritt formed such a mutual admiration relationship that they worked together on Paris Blues, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, the magnificent Hud, The Outrage and Hombre.

Sammy Cahn and Alex North wrote the title tune which is sung by Jimmie Rodgers over the opening credits and Joseph LaShelle brought his Technicolor cameras to life capturing southern living.

While most popular with critics, the movie didn't make the cut with the public when it was first released.  But as Newman and Woodward became more popular, folks seemed to want to take a look at all their work and The Long, Hot Summer gained in popularity.

In 1985 it was remade into a two-part TV movie with Jason Robards Jr., Don Johnson, Cybill Shepherd and Ava Gardner.

Here's a trailer:

Next posting:
A B actress who should
have been an A