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Based on the novel The Hamlet by William Faulkner and directed by Martin Ritt, 
this brooding screen adaptation stars golden couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in their first 
of ten on-screen pairings. 

They first met when Woodward was understudying in the Picnic, 
a 1953 Broadway play Newman was making his debut in.

Woodward would also go on to star in five films directed by Newman but which he did not appear in. 

They were married on January 29th 1958, one month before the film's premiere.

The Long Hot Summer

Newman plays Ben Quick, a rancher who moves to Frenchman's Bend in Mississippi after being run out of his previous 
town when he was accused of being a "barn burner", something which seems to happen wherever goes. 

Once in Frenchman's Bend he gets tangled up in the lives of wealthy landowner Will Varner (Orson Welles) 
and his daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward). 
Varner is disappointed in his own lazy free-loading son, (Anthony Franciosa) 
and worried that he will inherit and squander his estate and the only way to prevent that from happening 
is to make sure Clara is married off to someone a bit manlier and ambitious.

The problem is that Clare dislikes Ben and Jody doesn't take too kindly to the stranger moving into his home and working 
his way into his father's affections. It's only a matter of time before all these tensions burst into flames 
during the long hot summer.

There's something very raw and Tennessee Williams about this Faulkner story; a southern family, an outsider, 
sexual tensions and unresolved conflicts, they all make for great melodrama. 

Newman blows into town with all the angst of Marlon Brando, James Dean and Montgomery Clift before him; 
he was also a student of Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and the Stanislavski method (aka Method acting) 
and his scenes with Woodward show spark, while at the same time remaining tender as their real-life love blossomed.

The Long Hot Summer

In The Long Hot Summer we really begin to see something of the actor that would make him a superstar and 
not just his good looks. 

It's a film I remember watching for the very first time in back in 
the long hot summer of 1994 and I never forgot it. 

The larger than life Orson Welles isn't in top form here
or as captivating as Newman and in some scenes is upstaged by Angela Lansbury in a role long before 
she started writing Murder!

With its southern charm and burning tension, although its no match for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
(released the same year and also starring Newman), The Long Hot Summer remains a memorable piece 
of melodrama and cinema history.