THE LONG, HOT SUMMER
***/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Orson Welles
screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., based on the William Faulkner stories "Barn Burning" and "The Spotted Horses"
directed by Martin Ritt
by Walter Chaw The Long, Hot Summer is a classic example of Hollywood trying to have it both ways: it combines the seriousness of a literary property and some young Method talent with the lurid garishness of a dime-store novel. Seizing upon the exploitable elements–all that decadent behaviour and sexual dysfunction–of William Faulkner's work, the film pushes them to the fore, giving the cast the opportunity to sex things up in bare-shirted, post-Brando fashion. As a result, the film resembles soapy melodrama much more than Faulkner ("NOT SINCE PEYTON PLACE!" screams the trailer), but it's melodrama with the strength of its fetid convictions that makes for lively entertainment, whatever its shortcomings.
As a declaration of principles, The Long, Hot Summer begins a slow track towards a spontaneously-combusting barn: the promise of several meanings of "heat" is unmistakable. And so it is that Ben Quick (Paul Newman) is cast out of a Missouri small town under suspicion of setting the blaze, sending with him the possibility of mad passion and trouble. Finding himself in the decadent burg of Frenchman's Bend, he wastes no time in worming his way into the work roster of Will Varner (Orson Welles), who owns practically everything in town and is desperate for a proper heir from his children. Unfortunately for the elder Varner, his son Jody (Anthony Franciosa) is a slow study who's possibly shooting blanks, despite his constant horsing around with floozy wife Eula (Lee Remick). But when Will gets a load of the Machiavellian manoeuvrings of young Mr. Quick, he hatches a plot to mate the young man with his upright but unmarried daughter Clara (Joanne Woodward)–making for bedroom eyes and slapping all around.
You'll be surprised that this got past the censors in 1958. Between Jody's obsession with the bedroom and Ben's blatant advances towards Clara, the film constantly pushes the envelope of sexual frankness. Sadly, that frankness doesn't serve much of a purpose beyond titillation. Even though Clara gets her stripes for being the only ethical character in The Long, Hot Summer, the surrounding feature is positively DeMille-ian in its combination of sensuality and moralism, telling you repeatedly that its passionate declarations and ripped-slip innuendoes are evil while grinning and licking its chops at the same time. The pity and fear in which Faulkner specialized is nowhere to be found, and a bland narrative line that suggests nothing going on beneath the surface has replaced the author's formal brilliance.
But that surface is handled with a surprising amount of integrity. Part of the film's frisson lies in the laissez-faire direction of Martin Ritt, who, standing alone in the Hollywood of the time, treats the sex as if it were something he'd actually do. This sets The Long, Hot Summer apart from the standard tricked-up glamour sex performed by untouchable gods and goddesses: he uses his blasé attitude, plus whatever little fragments of Faulkner remain, to establish the naturalness (and, in the case of the Ben-Clara face-off, the inconvenience) of desire. While he sometimes pours it on fairly thick (the garish colours practically scream "sensuality"), it's clear that he feels some closeness to the subject and that he's not about to disavow that connection. And it's here that the film rises from the ashes of brute melodrama and becomes something more touching and enjoyable: at last, the tension of the set-up is broken and we just get down to it. It's not masterful, but it is in a tiny way significant, and it makes The Long, Hot Summer a cut above down-south Ross Hunter.
THE DVD
The Fox disc's long, hot transfer is first-rate. The 2:35:1 anamorphic image is sharp and clear, with a pristine, well-scrubbed print as its source: colours are superbly vibrant, with reds leaving an especially strong impression. The tastefully restored Dolby Surround sound is equally sharp, with no pops or crackles and an extremely robust tone; I'm willing to wager the film didn't sound this good in 1958. As for extras, the DVD includes an episode of AMC's "Backstory" that tells the somewhat convoluted tale of the film's production–suffice it to say that the budding romance of Newman and Woodward, the struggles of ex-blacklistee Ritt to establish himself, and the attempts of Welles to upstage the rest of the production make for a reasonably interesting 22 minutes. Also on offer is a newsreel of the film's Louisiana premiere; there are those who swoon for these things, but all they prove is that infotainment was no more edifying then than it is now. Rounding out the platter: the film's extremely well-preserved trailer, in addition to a gallery called "Paul Newman Theater" that features trailers for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, From the Terrace, Hombre, The Hustler, and The Verdict.
HUD
****/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon de Wilde
screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., based on the novel by Larry McMurtry
directed by Martin Ritt
by Bill Chambers The interesting thing about Martin Ritt's brilliant Hud is that its first ten minutes are so ominous and off-kilter, they groom you for a horror picture–The Last Picture Show (based, like Hud, on a novel by Larry McMurtry) by way of Herk Harvey, with Hud (Paul Newman, three-dimensionally loathsome) summoned by his nephew (Brandon de Wilde) to the Bannon farm at the crack of dawn to inspect a cow that died mysteriously in the middle of the night. It's the last thing you expect from a Newman-Ritt collaboration, and it's exhilarating, but the chill gives way to a more existential dread once interpersonal dynamics begin to emerge: Opportunistic and wildly irresponsible, Hud comes to blows with his father, Homer (Melvyn Douglas (Illeana's grampa) in his first Oscar-winning turn), over how to plan for the future of the family ranch, which seems in imminent danger, given the state inquiry into the animal's demise. Hud's charismatic unscrupulousness has Homer fearing the worst not just for his corruptible grandson, but also the national character: "Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire." ("You're an unprincipled man, Hud," he laments.) De Wilde–who was killed in a car accident at age 30 but grew out of his Shane-era Village of the Damned looks in time for a brief career as a teen heartthrob–and Patricia Neal, whose turn as the Bannons' reluctantly alluring housekeeper won the film its other acting Oscar only months before Neal suffered five consecutive strokes and the deaths of her two young children (sired with author Roald Dahl), contribute performances that, in helping to expedite Hud's tragic ending, presage the outcome of their own lives, permeating the picture with an unshakeable foreboding. Everybody talks about Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West as being a parable for the commercialization and subsequent collapse of the West, but as amazing a piece of work as that movie is, I don't think it cuts that deep; Hud, on the other hand, wrote the book on the subject. It understands a thing about progress: that torches are more often extinguished than passed.
Paramount DVD presents Hud on a barest of bones platter that features a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of confounding clarity, although the black-and-white source elements hit occasional blurry patches that resemble water damage. While the respectful Dolby Digital 5.1 remix does wonders for Elmer Bernstein's cheerless main theme, the first lines of dialogue register appallingly like AM radio. The "restored" mono soundtrack isn't a huge compromise.
- The Long, Hot Summer
115 minutes; NR; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English Dolby Surround, French DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Fox - Hud
111 minutes; NR; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0 (Mono), French DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Paramount
