The Long, Hot Summer

The Long, Hot Summer is a 1958 film directed by Martin Ritt. The screenplay was written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., based in part on three works by William Faulkner the 1931 novella Spotted Horses, the 1939 short story Barn Burning, and the 1940 novel The Hamlet. The title is taken from The Hamlet, as Book Three is called The Long Summer. Some characters, as well as tone, were inspired by Tennessee Williams 1955 play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a film adaptation of which also starring Paul Newman was released five months after the release of The Long, Hot Summer.

Ben Quick is on trial, suspected of barnburning, but when no solid evidence is found, the peace judge expels him from town. Ben then hitches a ride to Frenchmans Bend, Mississippi, with two young women in a convertible, Clara Varner and her sisterinlaw Eula Lee Remick. Claras father, Will Varner, is the domineering owner of most of the town.Ben goes to the Varner plantation. Will is away, but Jody, Wills only son, agrees to let him become a sharecropper on a vacant farm. When Will returns from a stay in the hospital, he begins to see in Ben a younger version of himself and comes to admire his ruthlessness and ambition, qualities that Jody lacks. Will is also disappointed with the man that his 23yearold daughter, Clara, has been seeing for five or six years Alan Stewart Richard Anderson, a genteel Southern blue blood and a mamas boy. Will therefore schemes to push his daughter and Ben together, to try to bring fresh, virile blood into the family. However, she is openly hostile to the crude, if magnetic, upstart. Will is determined to have his bloodline go on, so he offers Ben much wealth to marry Clara. Ben is interested, but eventually comes to see something more in Clara. Meanwhile, Minnie Littlejohn Angela Lansbury, Wills longtime mistress, is dissatisfied with the arrangement and wants to marry him. Will, a widower, is strongly against the idea. ........

Source: Wikipedia