Les feux de l'été

The Long Hot Summer is chiefly noted for the fact that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward made their joint cinematic debut in this film. One of Hollywood's best personal and professional partnerships, Joanne had won a Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve the year before and it took Paul thirty more years to match it for their mantelpiece in The Color of Money.

Based on some William Faulkner short stories, The Long Hot Summer commences when Joanne Woodward and Lee Remick, daughter and daughter-in-law of local patriarch Orson Welles give drifter Paul Newman a lift into town. Woodward's a repressed school teacher and Welles despairs of her finding a suitable match.

Because he started dirt poor and worked his way up to the top, Welles takes a liking to Newman and pushes, a little too hard for Newman and Woodward to team up. That's not sitting real well with Anthony Franciosa who is Welles's son and sees Newman displacing him in the family pecking order.

In fact my favorite in the film is Franciosa, he usually is in any film he's in. When he's on the screen, you don't pay attention to anyone else, not even Orson Welles.

Welles borrows a bit from Tennessee Williams's Big Daddy Pollitt from the Paul Newman film the year before, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. His Will Varner though is a bit softer around the edges, also lends itself more easily to caricature. I think the creators of The Dukes of Hazzard used Welles in The Long Hot Summer as their model for Boss Hogg.

In fact it's interesting to see the contrast in The Long Hot Summer and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. It's obvious to me that William Faulkner liked the people of Mississippi a whole lot more than the southerners that are in Tennessee Williams's work.

Almost fifty years later, The Long Hot Summer is still enjoyable viewing and still may be the best of Paul and Joanne's joint ventures.

I saw this film again last night at an old-time movie palace, in an audience of about 2,000 people. The film, which I had seen before, was even more enjoyable then the previous times I had seen it on TV. For one thing, it has some very lovely and well executed uses of the CinemaScope frame. It shows both the dry openness of the landscape, as well as the lush extravagance of the plantation estate which belongs to Orson Welles' character. I'm not too familiar with Faulkner's stories, but the plot elements of this film flow together rather nicely, and there isn't really a dull moment in the whole picture. The only part which is still difficult for me to take, is the resolution of the conflict between Welles' and Franciosa's characters. That scene builds up to something in a matter of minutes, and then suddenly it's over. I could hear disappointment in some audience members in the theater as well, including one person who shouted "What the heck was that about?". This aside, it's still a worthwhile film to see, and the acting of Newman, Woodward, and Welles are standouts. There are also plenty of (probably unintentional) laughs to be had as well. One of the better soap opera-type films to come out of the late 1950s.

...and loving it! This movie takes the best of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, SUMMER AND SMOKE, throws in more than a dollop of William Inge's PICNIC, borrows the basket auctioning bit from OKLAHOMA! and the digging-for-treasure-by-the-old-collapsing-house subplot from GOD'S LITTLE ACRE - hell, we even get a variation on the cotton gin burning from BABY DOLL - and somehow delivers an original and unforgettable entertainment, the kind of movie they truly don't make any more. Every member of the cast is superb, with Woodward being a standout and Lee Remmick being gorgeous. How audiences must have swooned in 1958! How many people left the theater thinking they had seen something truly naughty and adult! This film has great dialog, atmosphere to spare, stunning yet understated costumes by Adele Palmer, and gorgeous cinematography. This is all tied together by another fine Alex North score. Check out the scene - lasting no more that 45 seconds - when Newman and Woodward cross a small bridge to share a picnic lunch. This music cue is magical. Jerry Wald produced many high-class soap operas at Fox during the late 1950's, but this one is by far the best. Lansbury shines, Welles hams, and Newman takes his shirt off - what more could an audience ask for? A dreamy title tune crooned over the credits? You got it!

It was the time when they called him a young new star and it was his breakthrough to stardom, fame, and success. The moment Paul Newman's Ben Quick, rebellious and irresistible drifter enters a rural Mississippi town of Frenchman's Bend to stir up its women, puzzle its men and to catch the interest of Big Daddy Varner (Orson Welles, the ferocious force of nature seemed to have fun playing Will Varner and experimenting with make-up) the town richest and most powerful redneck who perhaps sees in Ben a lot of himself, the screen legend was born.

"The Long, Hot Summer" (1958) is based on five short stories and a novel by one of the America's greatest novelists and storytellers, the expert of Southern life, William Faulkner, and the film is a steamy, moving, often funny (perhaps, unintentionally) tale of lust, greed, jealousy, and larger than life personalities and their clashes. I guess I need to read more Faulkner's stories because I was surprised to see the film that is based on the works of the writer known for his heavy use of such sophisticated literary techniques as symbolism, allegory, and especially stream of consciousness, the film which linear narrative is easy to follow from the third person point-of-view.

Besides Paul Newman who was as talented as he was hot, his off- screen wife-to-be Joanna Woodward shines as Clara Varner, Will's intelligent, thinking daughter, the teacher in a local school whom her father wants to see married (and not just wants but takes certain steps that Clara does not like and feels offended by). The film was the first of many Newman's and Woodward's collaboration and it is not easy to recall the greater chemistry between two leads. Orson Welles dominates the screen in his every scene as expected. 21-years-old Lee Remick (Eula, Varner's daughter-in-law, sexy and innocent woman-child), Anthony Franciosa (Jody, Varner's overlooked and jealous son), and Angela Lansbury (Minnie, the woman who has her own plans about future that include a widower Varner in them) all add to the sizzling fun that "The Long Hot Summer" is.

This is one of the great guilty pleasure movies. Orson Welles, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward are all wonderful, and the supporting cast is just fine. The plot is delightfully incoherent, and everyone gets a chance to chew on the scenery. As a big fan of Faulkner, I find the way the screenwriters have jumbled together characters, themes and episodes from various books especially entertaining (although the sensibilities of the characters are more Tennessee Williams, or Tennessee Tuxedo even, than Faulkner, which just adds to the pleasure).

The producer was Jerry Wald, and this has the look and feel that is (at least to me) characteristic of his movies.