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.
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.