The sexually searing film “The Long Hot Summer” written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. goes to show that male/female writing teams just like James Camron and Gale Anne Herd who wrote “The Terminator” can wield a powerful pen indeed.
The script is based on a combination of different William Falkner short stories including “Spotted Horses” and “Barn Burning” and Faulkner’s novel “The Hamlet”. Its set during one hot summer in the Louisiana in a town called Frenchman’s Bend and designed to work like a Tennessee Williams’ play which it succeeds doing on many levels especially in its poetic dialogue, smoldering sexuality and rich characterizations. It was directed by William Ritt who was an assistant teacher at the Actor’s Studio to Elia Kazan. Kazan directed a couple of excellent film versions of Williams plays himself including “A Streetcar named Desire” and “Baby Doll”. Ritt cast the film with many of the Actor’s Studio former students back when well-trained actors were actually in movies and people who could actually write wrote scripts. A testament to how well written the script really is can be seen in watching not just the original film but also in viewing the 1985 remake of the same name which ran on NBC as a miniseries. The remake is even sultrier than the original with its sexual tension and heat literally rising off the screen and I recommend it highly…if you can get your hands on a copy. As far as I know it has never been released to DVD.
Paul Newman (who deservedly won the Cannes Best Actor award for his performance) plays a drifter named Ben Quick with a reputation for burning barns. After being thrown out of one town when one of the inhabitant’s property goes up in smoke Ben takes a boat to Frenchman’s Bend and hitches a ride from the Varner girls; Clara, (Joanne Woodward) the prim and proper schoolmistress daughter of the town’s patriarch Will Varner and Eula (Lee Remick), Will’s beautiful and sexually charged daughter in law who is married to his screw up son Jody. Ben’s timing is perfect as he arrives in town while Will is in the hospital and Jody, who is more interested in banging Eula than keeping up on current events, is not aware of Ben’s reputation. He gives Ben a job working one of the Varner’s farms until Will arrives home a day later. Will, a big commanding Big Daddy kind of personality is aware of Ben’s reputation. He comes down hard on Jody, lays down the law and goes off to have a conversation with Ben.
Ben, a savvy man who is always open to opportunities, sees his threatening reputation as a way to make a deal with Will and move up in the world. He quickly works his way into Will’s favor starting with selling a bunch of Will’s wild untamable horses all the while trying to get the attention of Will’s daughter Clara. Will’s Achilles heel is his need for posterity and he is desperate to marry Clara off in order to breed enough Varner children to cover the country side. But Clara is fixated on a genteel man named Allen Stewart who, as Ben tells her (in one of the films best scenes) that she’s putting her money in the wrong bank…which she is indeed. Will seeing the gumption in Ben and fed up with Alan’s half-assed stagnant five year courtship of Clara gives Ben a job in his general store to compete with his son Jody and strikes yet another deal with Ben to get him closer to the headstrong Clara.
The DVD has the original theatrical trailer and English subtitles which in my opinion should be standard on any release. It also includes “Backstory: The Long Hot Summer” which though vapid in its presentation contains some interesting trivia about the film. For instance Angela Lansbury talks about how she liked playing Minnie Littlejohn because she finally got to play a character that is completely based on sex. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward who married in Las Vegas shortly after the film rapped purchased a large brass bed to sleep on during the shooting that was originally made and used in a whore house and Anthony Franciosa who was married to Shelly Winters at the time was arrested not long before the filming for punching a photographer in the face…but then can you blame him. But the most interesting information is probably about Orson Wells who was twenty years younger than the character he played and had developed a reputation for being hostile and difficult to work with. He’d just had a series of films that had flopped and was basically reduced to a desperate actor. It’s a shame Wells gets thought of mostly for “Citizen Kane” because in reality he had a very impressive career including directing “The Magnificent Ambersons” which is a brilliant film and the twisted and intriguing “Touch of Evil”. He also turned in terrific performances playing truly despicable characters in “The Stranger” and the classic masterpiece “The Third Man”. And he is brilliant here chewing up the scenery as Will Varner. I mean think about it, how many forty something film posers…I mean actors could pull off playing a roll like this so well? Maybe Phillip Seymour Hoffman but then of course he’s dead. Wells had difficulty on the set being surrounded by method actors (much like method actors today must have difficulty being surrounded by...whatever they are) and mumbled some of his lines beyond what could be deciphered but almost no one else could have played the part so convincingly and so well.
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