FAQ

Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi plantation patriarch Will Varner (Orson Welles), fearing that his son Jody (Anthony Franciosa) is a nebbish because he only cares about fooling around with his seductive wife Eula (Lee Remick), attempts to marry off his dowdy schoolteacher daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward) to ambitious but ruthless hired man Ben Quick (Paul Newman) in an attempt to get some virile blood into the Varner line. However, Clara has her eyes set on mama's boy Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson), just as Will's longtime mistress, Minnie Littlejohn (Angela Lansbury) has her heart set on getting Will to walk down the aisle with her.

The Long, Hot Summer is loosely based on The Hamlet (1940), a novel by American writer William Faulkner [1897-1962]. The novel was adapted for the screen by American film writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. A TV remake, also titled Les feux de l'été (1985), was released in 1985.

Presumably for surgery of some sort, evidenced when Will is being transported home in the ambulance and some of the townfolk wonder what he had 'cut out of him in the hospital.' Also, when he is greeted by Minnie LIttlejohn, she mentions him being 'cut and stitched up.' Apparently it was major surgery because, when Will kisses Eula hello, he says 'Three months, and I ain't smelled nothin' other than the starch in the nurses' uniforms,' and he tells Jody that the doctors 'took away almost every organ they thought I could spare.'

The relationship between Alan, Clara, and his mother (Mabel Albertson) is one that is often called into question. Some viewers think that Alan was simply a 'mama's boy', abandoned by his father when very young and raised by an overprotective mother who feared losing him, too, and so repressed him sexually. Others point out the scene where Will calls Alan a 'sissy' and conclude that terms like 'sissy' and 'mama's boy' were subtle filmspeak in the 50s for what today would simply be termed 'gay.'

Full of anger at his father, Jody sets the barn on fire, locking Will inside. Suddenly, he has a change of heart and opens the door. Will hugs Jody and praises him for his 'hellfire' and 'redemption', his hate and love. When the town sees the barn on fire, they conclude it was set by Ben Quick. They form a lynch mob to hang him, but Clara drives through town and picks him up before the mob can get to him. The mob follows them to the Varner house, but Will tells them that he started the fire himself when he dropped his cigar in the hay. The smell brings back bad memories of Ben's barn-burning father, and he tells Clara how he had to live with it till he was 10 and finally turned in his father. Later that evening, Ben tells Will that he's going to be moving on and goes up to his room to pack. Clara follows him with the same lecture that he gave her earlier about running away, changing his name, and dyeing his hair, and that maybe he'll be safe from her. In the final scenes, Clara and Ben kiss, Jody and Eula race each other to the bedroom, and Will and Minnie enter the house arm-in-arm after Will tells her that he likes life so much that he just might live forever.