The Long, Hot Summer

Based on two short stories by William Faulkner, the film nevertheless has, as critics noted, more than a touch of Tennessee Williams. Accused of burning down a barn, Ben Quick drifts into a new county and catches the eye of a boisterous landowner—played with relish by Orson Welles—who promptly sets about marrying him off to his proper but strong-willed daughter. Beyond the off-screen romance that blossomed between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, the film is a pleasure in its own right: Newman’s playful swagger, a story that rolls from one dramatic crest to the next, and above all the thrill of discovering Woodward—a formidable actress whose restrained, magnetic performance wins over Newman, Welles, and, inevitably, us.