Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Bella The Long Hot Summer (1958) is a Classic Drama starring Paul Newman as Ben Quick. Ben Quick is accused of being a barn burner and a con man. He hitches a ride with two fancy ladies into a small town in Mississipi and finds out that the two fancy ladies are the daughters of the richest man in town, Mr. Varner. The film is quite long, but it is interesting. Paul Newman is excellent in this film, as usual, and his character is likable. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys Old Dramas as this film contains all of the elements that are common in dramas from the 50s. It was a bit longer than I personally feel that it should have been, but there were some funny moments and sweet romantic moments that made this feature worthwhile.

tieman64 Director Martin Ritt and actor Paul Newman worked together on "Hud" and "Hombre", two masterpieces. Their work on 1958's "The Long, Hot Summer", in contrast, is mostly overcooked trash.A raging rip-off of the works of Tennessee Williams and the films of Elia Kazan (despite being based on several William Faulkner stories), "The Long, Hot Summer" abounds with Southern Gothic and Southern Literature clichés. There's its sweltering hot, antebellum landscapes, its old slave homes, its fat, wealthy land barons, its disgruntled proletariat, the baron's bickering sons, its sexy, ultra masculine drifter and of course a cast of Southern women, some of whom are docile, some fiercely independent, some sexually frustrated, some promiscuous, some in need of being tamed.The film's plot is irrelevant. Better to instead focus on the film's few scenes featuring actor Orson Welles, who plays Will Verner, a hilariously bombastic family patriarch who also owns most of his small, Louisianan town. Newton is superb as well, always slick with sweat and dressed in sexy white vests. The film sports some great dialogue, and is actually well written in parts, but simply can't escape its many clichés.6/10 – Worth one viewing. See "This Property is Comdemened".

Guy Plot: A dangerous drifter becomes friends with the richest family in a town in Mississippi More of a play than a film, this garish monstrosity combines most of the worst features of 1950s American film-making. There is simply too much music, too much make-up, too much studio shooting, too many static shots, too much of everything. Orson Welles in particular doesn't so much as chew the carpet as eat the whole darned house, in a dementedly florid performance. The two genres that age worst tend to be teen rebel and sex films, because what is provocative to one generation is tepid to another; which is exactly what happens here. The film also makes the mistake of thinking itself positively Shakespearian because it has broad Southern accents. It isn't. It's a fairly run of the mill family melodrama as daddy tries to arrange his brood to provide him with grand-kids, whilst the nice school teacher rejects Paul Newman's tough drifter in such a way that you know that they will inevitably end up together. As indeed they do.

kenjha A drifter comes into a Mississippi town and is taken under the wing of the town big shot in this drama based on multiple works of Faulkner. Newman is solid as an ambitious worker trying to escape his past. Welles steals the film in a wonderfully hammy performance as a larger-than-life character who rules over not only his two meek children but also the entire town. Franciosa is fine as Welles's wimpy son, but Woodward's performance seems somewhat wooden. Remick is given little to do except look pretty, which she does well. In the first of six films he made with Newman, Ritt creates an atmosphere befitting the title. The plot element concerning fire-starting is rather silly.