The Long, Hot Summer (1958): When Paul Met Joanne…

      Directed by Martin Ritt

      Starring:

      Paul Newman as Ben Quick

      Joanne Woodward as Clara Varner

      Orson Welles as Will Varner

      Anthony Franciosa as Jody Varner

      Lee Remick as Eula Varner

      Angela Lansbury as Minnie Littlejohn

      Okay, I’m going to ask you to indulge me a little bit with this sultry, sparky, smoulderingly sexy 1950s romance—because The Long, Hot Summer is very close to my heart. Simply put, it’s the film that turned me on to the wonders of bad boys and romance and the fabulousness of Paul Newman at the impressionable age of thirteen, when I first saw it at the National Film Theatre (an art-house cinema showing old movies on London’s South Bank) during one long-ago long, hot summer (appropriately).

      Now, Mr Newman was an incredibly gorgeous man—sonnets could have been written about those chiselled cheekbones, his lean muscular physique and, of course, those unfathomable blue eyes. And he’s at his moody and magnificent best in this movie. But while his looks are certainly breathtaking, that’s only a small part of the package that makes this movie worth its weight in gold to any self-respecting romance junkie (like moi).

      First off, there’s the premise (very loosely based on a William Faulkner story), which is quite simply a romance author’s dream. And any author who’s ever had trouble finding that all-important conflict in a story (waves hand in the air) should take notes at this point.

      As Ben Quick, a drop-dead-gorgeous drifter with a dangerous reputation, Paul is the quintessential bad boy. All smouldering sexuality, mercenary charm and devil-may-care arrogance, Ben swaggers into Clara Varner’s steamy southern town in the middle of a heatwave and immediately sets Clara’s neat and tidy life on fire after making a Faustian bargain with Clara’s dad, Will—a Big Daddy–style demagogue who’s determined to see his only daughter wedded and bedded and making babies.

      Will is a self-made man (played with fabulous OTT bluster by Orson Welles), and he sees in Ben a lean, hungry wolf who’s a chip off the old block, a man who’ll do anything to live the easy life—including seduce a woman into marriage for a share of her daddy’s money.

      But Clara’s a smart woman with principles; she’s wise to her father’s schemes and she’s determined not to fall for Ben. She wants refinement and intelligence in her marriage, a man with scruples and standards, a man who loves her, not just a handsome stud who can get her hormones doing the hula….

      As she puts it to Ben, ‘I’ve spent my whole life around men who push and shove and shout and think they can make anything happen just by being aggressive, and I’m not anxious to have another one around the place.’

      Yeah, right! What? Is she insane? This is Paul Newman in his prime we’re talking about, and he’s totally focussed on making her fall for him. Even to the point of bidding a fortune for her picnic at a local county fair so she’s forced to eat lunch with him. What could be sexier or harder to resist?

      Okay, sorry, getting a grip here. Luckily, Clara’s got a lot more integrity than I do (I would have said yes in a heartbeat and the movie would have been over) and she doesn’t give in….

      Not until she sees there’s a chink in Ben’s armour. Maybe he’s not as self-assured and ruthless as he pretends to be, maybe there’s actually someone worth taming behind all that arrogant, audacious sex appeal….

      But quite apart from the fabulous characters, all that sizzling sexual tension and full-steam-ahead conflict, what really makes this movie stand out is the casting—and the real-life love story behind it. Because as well as Paul Newman in all his glory, we have a young Joanne Woodward cast opposite him as Clara at the exact moment when the two of them were falling in love for real.

      The sparks seem to fly off the screen, and this explains exactly why these two had a marriage that defied Hollywood convention and lasted half a century—right up until Paul’s death in 2008 at the grand old age of eighty-three.

      When I walked out of the NFT that long-ago summer, I had set my heart on marrying Paul one day. Needless to say, I was a tad miffed to discover he was already taken (not to mention nearly old enough to be my granddad), but when I found out he’d married Clara, well, I was prepared to take it on the chin—because I’d fallen for Joanne, too. She was more than a match for him, and I’d seen exactly why the two of them deserved their Happy Ever After.

      They were meant to be together and the evidence is all right here in glorious Technicolor. Watch it and see for yourself.

      So if you’re ever in the mood to reaffirm your love of romance or looking for proof positive that there is such a thing as a love that lasts forever, go hunt this movie down on Netflix or catch it the next time it’s on telly. Wait for the scene when Paul’s Ben says to Joanne’s reluctant Clara,

      All right then, run, lady, and keep on running. 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.

      And feel the shiver run down your spine.