Hot Summer Night (1957) User Reviews

pretty good

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 4 September 2014]

As this film, Hot Summer Night, was made in 1957, there are a lot of familiar faces in it who had success in television: Leslie Nielsen, Paul Richards, Edward Andrews, Claude Aikens, and Jay C. Flippen. Most of the actors were quite prolific and enjoyed long careers as character actors. Nielsen's career spanned over sixty years, and he lived long enough to re-invent himself in comic roles and start a new career.

The story concerns honeymooners, the Partains (Nielsen and Colleen Miller), who are staying at a cabin near a small town. Bill Partain has been fired from his newspaper, and he gets wind of a big story that could win him his job back. A well-known thief, Tom Ellis (Robert Wilke), has struck again, and a bank employee was killed. He's hiding out nearby. No one in the town wants to help Partain find Ellis or his wife Ruth, who lives separately from him, because it's a poor town and Ellis has helped many of them for a long time. When Partain finally finds Ellis and interviews him, the actions of one of Ellis' psycho partners (Richards) make Partain a hostage.

This isn't a bad B movie. As a B movie made in black and white, it does have a TV feel to it. Richards handles a showy role well. Colleen Miller, who plays Nielsen's wife, had a difficult role; the wife was sort of a pain. The attractive Miller retired a year later when she married Ted Briskin, a wealthy man previous married to Betty Hutton.

Worth watching for the young Nielsen, and if you're my age, the actors will bring back memories for you.

A bright flare of heat from the embers of the noir cycle

[bmacv · 7/10 · 5 December 2003]

By 1957, the dark fire of the noir cycle had all but died down, yet amid the embers were a few live coals. Plunder Road was one; another is Hot Summer Night. It stars the young Leslie Nielsen, then being groomed as a tough romantic lead, as an out-of-work newspaper man from Kansas City on his honeymoon in the Ozarks who can't pass up a lead on a brutal bank robbery.

Trouble is, in the possum-run of a town he's staying in, the head of the gang (Robert Wilke) has become a local hero; nobody wants to whisper a word, both out of pride and fear of reprisal. When Nielsen finally gets taken to the rural hideout, long-simmering violence among the thieves erupts, and he finds himself held for ransom by the trigger-happy new leader (Paul Richards). Meanwhile the poor bride (Colleen Miller) doesn't know where her husband has disappeared to, and finds herself running into the same obstinate wall of silence....

Produced by MGM (which head of production Dore Schary had nudged toward noir), Hot Summer Night boasts a clean, straightforward script, a score by André Previn, and a roster of well-cast players even in small parts, among them Marianne Stewart, Claude Akins, and the always excellent Jay C. Flippen. It's a modest but workmanlike picture that holds up well close to half a century after its release.

Note: Another commentator called this movie `Ma and Pa Kettle meet Cornell Woolrich.' While the point is appreciated, the immortal Kettles made their debut in the Claudette Colbert/Fred MacMurray vehicle The Egg and I of 1947, which was set in the Pacific Northwest, not, as is often assumed, in the Ozarks or Appalachia.

The Dark Side of Mayberry

[abooboo-2 · 7/10 · 4 May 2001]

Unusual. Despite pacing problems and pockets of clumsy dialogue, it has some good insights into the criminal mind as well as the minds of those who feel the need to mythologize outlaws that literally get away with murder. It's bolstered by a wise, unsentimental performance from Jay C. Flippen as a hard-nosed con rolling the dice one last time, and Paul Richards' strange turn as a neurotic, scarily unpredictable gunman. (He is involved in a bizarre, never-saw-it-coming act of violence about half way in that really gets your attention - to put it mildly.) Leslie Nielsen is fine as the out of work newspaperman desperate for a good story, but Colleen Miller is barely adequate as his new bride. You never buy that she would marry someone without a job, nor can you accept his decision to stir things up with the locals on their honeymoon so soon, especially in her presence. She comes across as mystifyingly accepting of the situation, and at times seems to be in some kind of a trance-like state.

But its strengths outweigh its flaws. The script is gutty and resourceful and the director, David Friedkin, creates a sense of real isolation, a feeling that this small, dingy town isn't so much a whole different planet as much as it is a kind of black hole. If you ever get caught in it, you can be sure you'll have a devil of a time getting out. Good suspense and an exciting finish. Always fun to uncover curious little efforts like this. Definite cult possibilities.

A Crackerjack Sleeper

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 7 July 2020]

Newlyweds Leslie Nielsen and Colleen Miller are traveling through the Ozarks in search of a story. He's a recently laid off reporter and what he's looking for is an interview with a John Dillinger like criminal who is from there and is a local legend. And the town is very protective f that legend.

It takes a while but Nielsen finds the legend played by Robert Wilke. He gets his interview. But quite suddenly Nielsen becomes the story.

A lot of familiar character players turn in some top drawer performances. No stars in this film give it a nice authentic ring. if I had to choose one it would be Paul Richards ho made a career of playing deranged individuals. Richards may have got a career role here.

No frills for ts B film, but a great cast and story.

Average, Despite Unusual Elements

[dougdoepke · 28 November 2015]

A newlywed ex-reporter sees a big story in a desperado gang holed up near his honeymoon site. Trouble is the townsfolk like the bank-robbers a lot more than they do the city outsider. But the persistent newsman smells the kind of story that might get him re-employed.

I guess I'm in a minority, but I found the results here pretty ordinary. Glossy MGM simply did not have a feel for B-movies, not even with RKO's former noir impresario Dore Scary at the helm. The movie's real potential is in a first-rate supporting cast that should have been allowed to ooze menace. Trouble is director Friedkin films events flatly and from an impersonal distance. Thus we're denied Paul Richards' (Elly) special brand of unnerving facial tics; at the same time, Wilke (Ellis) is robbed of his usual brand of thuggish menace. I realize Ellis has got to have enough nice-nice to merit the town's respect, still that undercuts the distinctive presence the movie needs. On the other hand, Flippen's fine as the levelheaded Oren, the sort of avuncular role he did so well in the previous year's The Killing. Nielsen's okay in the starring role, but the lightweight Miller has way too much malt shop for a crime drama, and is a poor match for the sturdy Nielsen.

Get set, however, for the film's one distinguishing feature, a startling development halfway through. Too bad the direction didn't reach this level of imagination.

On a more historical note, it's probably worth pointing out that many areas of the US idolized 1930's bank-robbing desperadoes like Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde. Needless to say, foreclosure banks were not exactly popular among depression-era folks. In fact, Floyd was reputed to have destroyed mortgage paperwork among the banks he robbed. So that part of the movie is interesting and based on what's now little known fact.

All in all, the crime drama's not a bad movie just a cheaply produced programmer that should have been more effective than it is.

Ma and Pa Kettle Meet Cornell Woolrich

[telegonus · 7/10 · 23 April 2001]

Late fifties Metro addition to the film noir genre, Ozarks-style, featuring Leslie Nielsen. A comedy, you say,--perish the thought! Nielsen was in his 'next-Glenn Ford' phase, and plays it straight down the line, no chaser, no jokes, and he's very good. This is an exceedingly well-crafted, offbeat little thriller about a big city reporter in over his head as he tracks down a legendary outlaw in an extremely backward, backwoods community. The sense of isolation is very well built up, as is the cluelessness of the man and his wife, who simply don't know what to do, or even how to talk to these people. Among the denizens of the backwoods are such choice Hollywood masters of the cretinous as Claude Akins and James Best. The po-faced Paul Richards plays an unhinged character; a nice piece of offbeat casting, this. Robert Wilkie manages to be both warm and frightening as the honcho bad guy. What makes the film work is its marvelous and all-pervading sense of not only the unknown but the unknowable, as we learn just how naive city folks can be when out of their element. It is literally a night movie, thus there is no question about it being film noir. Strangeness lurks everywhere on these back roads, where one might expect Robert Mitchum to turn up, or maybe Bonnie and Clyde, or maybe Jeff Dahmer. One never can tell. You think rural communities are idyllic? Think again. The biggest surprise and most charming performance in the film by far is by Edward Andrews, who normally plays smarmy, scheming or mean-spirited white collar types, often with a comic touch, totally absent here. In Hot Summer Night he is the local sheriff, and he is salvation itself. The movie just goes to show, for the umpteenth time, how far creative people can go with seemingly routine material; how it can be exciting and shocking and even, in its presentation, new. It also shows how fun it can be to see stereotypes played with, altered, turned upside down and inside out, both as to casting, locale and viewer expectation.

young Leslie

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 7 July 2020]

Tom Ellis and his murderous bank robbery crew have their hideout in rural Ozarks. Newspaper reporter Bill Partain (Leslie Nielsen) and his wife are on their honeymoon in a nearby cabin. He's in between jobs after a newspaper merger. When he gets a tip on the robbers, he decides to investigate but finds the locals less than welcoming.

It's interesting to see Leslie Nielsen as the young leading man. He has a stoic sincerity to his performance but he has trouble showing fear. That's the missing element which keeps the tension at a lower level. He doesn't feel like he's in danger despite the fact that his character is definitely in danger. All in all, this is an interesting little noir.

Leslie Nielsen Plays It Straight

[bhoover247 · 7/10 · 7 July 2020]

It's hard to watch a young Leslie Nielsen play a straight role in a drama. He does a good job here. The plot was a little bit unbelievable, but the actors all do a good job, except for the wife who seems to have been picked for this role because she is pretty. The townspeople were kind of like the town in Columbia where Pablo Escabar lived. They knew their local guy was a crook but he was their crook and didn't need any outside people to tell them that.

early L Nielsen

[ksf-2 · 5/10 · 29 August 2020]

Reporter Partain (30 year old Leslie Nielsen) goes looking for trouble... and Ruth Childers in a little hick town. James Best (Sheriff, from Dukes of Hazzard County) picks a fight. Ed Andrews is the local deputy who knows things, and may or may not be helpful. I recognized Andrews from Glass Bottom Boat. Andrews was always the wise uncle, or the general, supporting the lead. Ruth Childress knows where Tom Ellis is, but she doesn't want to get involved... more than she already is. Partain finally meets the people he's looking for, and starts asking questions. Then things go from bad to worse when they hold Partain and demand a ransom. a fair amount of suspense while we wait to see if they can save him before he's knocked off by the kidnappers. Claude Akins has a meaty role as one of the bad guys. Up to now, Nielsen had mostly tv roles.. then he started getting larger film roles in the mid 1950s. Directed by David Friedkin. did a lot of writing for tv series... I Spy, Hitchcock Presents. this one is very okay. nothing too grand.

They say that "There's no armor among thieves . . . "

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 21 July 2020]

. . . but HOT SUMMER NIGHT shows why there should be. To appreciate the magnitude of this film farce, imagine that Bonnie had a lovers' spat with Clyde, and shot him stone cold dead halfway through their movie. Or that the "Lady in Red" gunned down Dillinger during the intermission to reap the entire reward for herself. Can you say "Anti-climactic"? This HOT SUMMER NIGHT flick pulls such a dirty trick on its audience (if any). It would serve these sadistic filmmakers right if everyone who bought a ticket for this premature assassination walked out and got their money back.

SURPRISINGLY WEAK

[adverts · 4/10 · 8 December 2022]

The first half hour is quite boring and although it picks up when the "bad guys" show up (they are easily the most interesting characters), the film never really gains any steam. The dialogue, especially Colleen Miller's, is clunky. It's a little hard to take Leslie Nielsen repeatedly leaving his wife on their honeymoon and putting her in harms way - but there isn't much chemistry there to begin with.

The best scene is when Tom Ellis is shot. It's totally unexpected. Did the director purposely not make a big deal of it (making it weirdly effective) or did he not even realize what he just did?!

excellent!!--combines the best qualities of BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK and PETRIFIED FOREST

[django-1 · 9/10 · 3 October 2004]

A very late entry in the film noir cycle--and a small-town noir at that!--HOT SUMMER NIGHT is well-done in just about every way. Except for a few awkward dialogue passages between Leslie Nielsen and Colleen Miller in the man-wife scenes (a small part of the film), the film combines the best qualities of BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (outsider comes into hostile, secretive small town and is rejected) and PETRIFIED FOREST ("regular" characters held hostage by philosophizing criminals delivering stage-like soliloquies). The film also has multiple levels of social commentary, is full of unexpected and even shocking brief spurts of violence that send the plot in unexpected directions, and is acted perfectly by virtually every supporting actor in the cast. Each character (except for the wife) is three-dimensional and complex and somewhat contradictory...just like real people! Younger viewers might be surprised to see Leslie Nielsen strutting around in a t-shirt and acting like a tough guy, but he does it convincingly and his character--a newspaperman specializing in crime stories--would need to be able to turn the tough-guy persona on when he dealt with criminals in his work. Among the supporting players, Paul Richards is fantastic as the psycho Elly, a role that may have gone to Montgomery Clift or James Dean in a bigger-budgeted film. Richards, who has a huge body of television work, passed away in 1974, but I'm anxious to seek out his work as he is a major talent. James Best also gives one of his finest-ever dramatic performances here as Kermit, the abrasive punk who is far more complex than he seems to be when we first meet him as he assaults Leslie Nielsen in a bar. The soundtrack by Andre Previn is so good, I wish I could buy a copy. There's lots of fine sax-driven rock'n'roll in the bar sequences, and the piano trio material (presumably played by Previn himself) is worthy of being released as a jazz album. The film goes in a completely unexpected direction at the mid-point, and even the climax, though not entirely unexpected, had me on the edge of my seat. As a study of the nature of crime and the nature of small-town society, or as an entertaining 1950s crime film, HOT SUMMER NIGHT is one of those studio b-movies that is so much better than it needed to be--everyone involved with it clearly wanted to make something special and memorable even though working in an assembly-line studio format, and they succeeded admirably. Don't miss it the next time it plays on TCM.

"It's a story, it's big! And I've got to go after it in my own way."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 16 September 2023]

Well, this one took an unexpected turn, didn't it? And right out of the clear blue! The story changed direction really quick when maniac Elly Horn (Paul Richards) shot his gang boss Ellis, (Robert J. Wilke), and took over the hostage situation involving unemployed newspaper reporter Bill Partain (Leslie Nielsen). I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't see how any newspaper, much less the Kansas City Herald, would fork over fifty thousand dollars for a story about a gangster who held the small town of Chatsburg in thrall just because he was some sort of Robin Hood figure. The picture lost a little bit of momentum for me with that objective. And I know Partain was desperate to get his job, or any job back after getting squeezed out of a merger, but doing it on his honeymoon while leaving his new wife virtually abandoned? Divorce material after one week right there! So, a lot of this story didn't make sense to this viewer, even if cloaked in the noir trappings of one of my favorite genres. Which led me to thinking. With guys like Robert Wilke, James Best, Jay C. Flippen and Claude Akins in the cast, all of whom regularly appeared in Western movies and TV shows of the era, this flick might have done a whole lot better as a Western.