The Long, Hot Summer
by Martin Ritt
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Actor: Anthony Franciosa, Joanne Woodward, Lee Remick, Orson Welles, Paul NewmanDirector: Martin Ritt
Brand: NEWMAN,PAUL
Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle
Editor: Louis R. Loeffler
Producer: Jerry Wald
Writer: Harriet Frank Jr.
Writer: Irving Ravetch
Writer: William Faulkner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-05-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of The Long, Hot Summer
DVD Review: Messy but mesmerizing over-the-top scenery-chewing fun
Summary: 4 Stars
I haven't read the William Faulkner novel "The Hamlet", nor the other short stories from which this film was adapted, but I'd have to guess from what I know of the author's other works that it's a pretty loose rendition. Oh, the basic, typical Faulkner elements are here: the once-proud but now decaying family, the patriarch concerned about propagating his heritage into the future, the suspicions of strangers that come into the settled town and change things, the carnality and sexuality of women, the repression of desires by both sexes. But on the whole this is "lighter" and more optimistic-feeling than any work of the writer that I've read, and it certainly strikes me as unlikely that the novel - published in 1940 - is as full of humor, and short on gothic misery, as the film. I guess I'll have to read it and find out...
All that's by way of saying that this ain't a film you need to go into worrying about Faulknerian heaviness. Even the florid, over-the-top character of Will Varner (Orson Welles at his most charismatic and unstoppable), who dominates the small town of Frenchman's Bend through generosity and a gregarious nature as much as, or perhaps more than through the usual threats and intimidations - even he is as much a comic figure as anything. And pairing the force of nature Welles with the young Paul Newman as Ben Quick, ne'er do-well drifter who's looking for a piece of the Varner financial pie - and the Varner daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward) results not in a clash of egos and styles (at least not onscreen) but rather a contest of similar florid, scenery-chewing actors who seem to be having a good ol' time. And much of that, thankfully, translates into a good ol' time for us in the audience as well.
The basic storyline here is that Quick - run out of one town for supposed barn-burning - hitches a ride on a barge and ends up in this backwater Mississippi town, making the acquaintance of a couple of the town's young lovelies in the forms of Clara and her sister-in-law Eula (Lee Remick). Eula is married to Jody (Anthony Franciosa), Clara's older brother, a weak-willed and possibly impotent (it's only hinted at here) young man who seems incapable of pleasing his blustery father Will. Clara has been in a long-running semi-courtship with another weak man, Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson) who is sickly and under the thumb of a domineering mother - so the Alpha-male Quick is speedily sized up and found suitable as potential mating material for his spinster daughter by old Will, who throws himself around with even more weight than Welles was packing when the film was made (and that's saying something).
But as I said, it's not entirely Faulknerian Southern Gothic in style, perhaps closer to a mild Peyton Place atmosphere, maybe crossed with some "Hud"-era Larry McMurtry. And that's OK, because the actors all have fun with it, the location work is nice, and the whole thing does convey at least a little bit of the sense of the land and people and history that were the writer's life's work - even if only Woodward among the members of the principal cast was actually southern. I think she fares the best overall, regardless of her more realistic accent, getting pretty well the mixture of feelings that this smart, educated young woman has about being potentially pushed into a life where her abilities and talents won't be appreciated. Newman certainly has the charisma and charm for Ben Quick, but the darker and harder aspects of the character aren't opened up enough by screewriters Irving Ravitch and Harriet Frank for him to get as much juice out of it as he might. Remick doesn't have much to do but look pretty - which she does spectacularly well; Franciosa is playing a fairly stereotypical pathetic-son-trying-to-please-daddy but he carries it off nicely, always believably insecure around Welles and belligerent around Newman. Which leaves us with The Great Man, Orson the Magnificent who is...well, he's Orson. Hammy and showing off and dominating, I have no idea if this is the way the character was written but he's larger than life and full of energy, raging and laughing, yelling and joking. Half the time he's very hard to understand - and that's AFTER much of his part was post-dubbed (for that matter a large chunk of the film was looped, not just Welles' role). Talking a mile a minute, slurring his voice, changing his pitch - supposedly tricks to infuriate director Ritt, according to some sources. Well, maybe - but however much truth there is to that, he's magnetic and if he doesn't seem any more like he's from Mississippi than any of the rest of the cast, it does feel at times like he understands the Gothic, overdramatic nature of it all like no one else does.
In short, it's not quite Faulkner - not quite "real" - not quite a perfectly worked-out piece of narrative - but it's compulsively watchable thanks to the powerful cast, who may not have been making a masterpiece but who were clearly under a spell of some kind, and doing what Hollywood in those days did best - taking us out of our mundane world filled with mundane people, and bringing us to a land of larger-than-life characters, some of whom at least sure seem like they'd be fun to share a cold beer with, on a hot Mississippi summer afternoon.
The DVD looks fine, the colors bright and full of heat; the extras aren't substantial though there is a half-hour "making" of piece that was originally on TV and isn't terribly useful.
Description of The Long, Hot Summer
No Description Available.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 20-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD
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