The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

In Martin Ritt's sultry southern romantic melodrama that adapted a melange of William Faulkner stories - the CinemaScopic film that was made during the passionate courtship of the two main performers (in their first film together before their marriage in the same year as the film's release).

Irving Ravetch's and Harriet Frank Jr.'s screenplay was based in part on three works by William Faulkner:

• "Spotted Horses" - a 1931 novella
• "Barn Burning" - a 1939 short story
• The Hamlet - a 1940 novel

Its tagline promoted its Faulker roots: "The People of Faulkner...the language of Faulkner...the world of Faulkner!" The forceful and dramatic film received praise from critics (Newman won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival), but it wasn't a box-office success. With a budget of $1.65 million, it performed poorly.

• the opening scene introduced the hitch-hiking character of sexy, determined and virile drifter-sharecropper Ben Quick (Paul Newman), an arsonist suspect from another town; he was picked up in a convertible by Clara Varner (Joanne Woodward) and her sister-in-law Eula (Lee Remick) (who was married to Clara's unambitious brother Jody (Anthony Francoisa)), and taken to Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi; as Ben left their car, Eula mentioned to him how they were related to the town's influential and wealthy patriarch Will Varner (Orson Welles):
• "We two girls most particularly belong to Varner"
• after becoming a sharecropper on a vacant farm owned by the Varners, Ben met up again with Clara; he interpreted her coldness because he was "mean and dirty":
  • "You correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the feelin' I rile ya. I mean, me being so mean and dirty and all"
• Clara told him off:
  • "I've spent my whole life around men who push and shove and shout and think they can make anything happen just by bein' aggressive. And I'm not anxious to have another one around the place"
• Ben was introduced to Will Varner who owned all the town's businesses; Ben claimed he had a "reputation for being a dangerous man" as a disreputable, suspected barnburner; the domineering Varner replied:
  • "You're a young, dangerous man. I'm an old one. You don't know who I am. I better introduce myself. I'm the big landowner and chief moneylender in these parts. I'm commissioner of the elections and veterinarian. I own the store and the cotton gin and the grist mill, and the blacksmith shop, and it's considered unlucky for a man to do his tradin' or gin his cotton or grind his meal or shoe his stock anywhere else. Now, that's who I am"
• Ben responded to old man Varner: "You talk a lot"; Varner threatened Ben, knowing of his father's reputation of being an arsonist:
  • "Well, yes, I do, son. But I'm done talkin' to you except for passing you on this piece of information. I built me a new jail in my courthouse this year, and if during the course of your stay here, something, anything at all should happen to catch fire, I think you oughta know that in my jail, we never heard of the words 'habeas corpus.' You'd rot"
• Ben asked instead for a decent job:
  • "Well, a smart man, he'd give me a job...None of this weed-scratchin'. I'm talkin' about a job that'll give me a white shirt and a black tie and three squares. You've got a place in your store and several other spots where you could use me. And you'd be writing yourself a fire insurance policy into the bargain"
• Ben wanted a 'yes' or 'no' answer right away, prompting Varner to call him "mighty bushy-tailed for a beginner"
• while Will was hospitalized, Clara's brother Jody hired Ben to do some sharecropping on currently vacant land; shortly later, Will appointed Ben as a clerk in his general store, to assist Jody; Will was persistent in having Ben (who he likened to a younger version of himself) to marry Clara to pass on his family heritage; Ben was invited to live in the Varner's family estate
• the reckless Ben made many unsubtle advances toward 23 year-old old-maid schoolteacher Clara Varner, who repeatedly turned down Ben's seductive come-ons; on the porch after dinner, she called herself "just plain skittish" - he suggested that she loosen up: ("Let's go get in that old Lincoln car of yours and we'll go and plow up the countryside. Let's go holler off a bridge good and loud") - or if she just wanted quiet: ("You want quiet? Let's go find us a needle in a haystack"); she demurely declined: ("Mr. Quick, those are all lovely, colorful suggestions, but I'm afraid if I started out to follow you, I would hear the starch in my petticoat begin to rustle and I'd know I was out of character")
• he challenged her and then became impertinent about her genteel, mama's boy, Southern beau Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson):
  • "Get out of character, lady. Come on. Get way out.... You'll never know till you try...But if you're savin' it all for him, honey, you've got your account in the wrong bank"
• in the Varner's department store after closing time, with lots of on-screen chemistry, Ben was able to successfully proposition Clara for a kiss: ("Aw, school is out, Miss Clara. Them blinds are drawn, night's fallen. Nobody here to see if you make a mistake. You put them things down, Miss Clara, 'cause I'm gonna kiss you. I'm gonna show you how simple it is. You please me, and I'll please you. (She slapped him) Oh, I know what's troublin' you. It's all those boys hollerin' for Eula every night. And Eula with her hair hangin' down and Jody with his shirt off, chasin' her. And your old man at 60 and he's callin' on his lady love"); she reluctantly submitted to a kiss and a close hug

Department Store: Ben Propositioning Clara for a Kiss

• after their kiss, she admitted: ("All right. You proved it. I'm human"); he replied: ("Yes, ma'am, you're human all right"); and then he sarcastically talked about his bad reputation when she angrily accused him of being a barn burner:
  • "Well, you hit on it. I can see my white shirt and my black tie and my Sunday manners didn't fool you for a minute. Well, that's right, ma'am. I'm a menace to the countryside. All a man's gotta do is just look at me sideways, and his house goes up in fire. And here I am, livin' right here in the middle of your peaceable little town. Right in your backyard, you might say. Guess that oughta keep you awake at night")
• she turned and ran out of the store, and slightly later, the shirtless Ben delivered a speech to Clara from her porch, as she lay in bed within view:
  • "You look mighty pretty with them readin' glasses on. You look pretty with them off. You look mighty young there, Miss Clara all curled up in your bed like you just washed your hands and brushed your teeth and said your prayers like a little girl. I'll bet you was a mighty appealin' little girl. I'll bet your hair hung in a tangle down your back. I'll bet you knew where to look for robins' eggs and blackberries. I'll bet you had a doll with no head on it. There's a church bazaar comin' up next week. Now, you wear a white dress and a ribbon in your hair and I'll waltz you around under the moon. (She turned out her light) Clara? Clara. Clar-ar-ar-a"
• "in the woods" scene (at a picnic table away from the crowds) after the romantically-persistent and aggressive Ben bid on Clara's boxed chicken supper basket and won it for an exorbitant $50 dollars, she made a memorable speech to him about not wanting him for marriage:
  • "You got some foolish ideas about me, Mr. Quick. I am no tremblin' little rabbit full of smolderin', unsatisfied desires... I'm a woman, full-grown, very smart and not at all bad to look at... And I expect to live at the top of my bent with no help from you....You are barkin' up the wrong girl, Mr. Quick, because it will never be you.... I don't know what arrangement you think you have with my father, but you'll find you have no bargain with me....You have been hoodwinked, Mr. Quick. For once in your crafty life, you have been had...You're too much like my father to suit me, and I'm an authority on him....I gave up on him when I was nine years old and I gave up on you the first time I ever looked into those cold blue eyes.... I've got everything right, Mr. Quick....Mr. Quick, I am a human being. Do you know what that means? It means I set a price on myself, a high, high price. You may be surprised to know it, but I've got quite a lot to give. I've got things I have been savin' up my whole life, things like love and understanding and, and jokes and good times and good cooking. I'm prepared to be the queen of Sheba for some lucky man or at the very least, the best wife that any man could hope for. Now, that's my human history, and it's not gonna be bought and sold and it's certainly not gonna be given away to any passin' stranger"
• in response, he spitefully spoke back with some hostility: ("All right. Then run, lady. And you keep on runnin'! Buy yourself a bus ticket and disappear. Change your name, dye your hair, get lost! And then maybe, just maybe, you're gonna be safe from me")
• by film's end, as Ben was about to leave town, Clara made it clear that she would join him