THE LONG HOT SUMMER: a giant steamed ham

Why, bless your heart y'all! Pour me another Mint Julep and fix me some grits while I rest mah weary bones on this here bale of cotton. THE LONG HOT SUMMER puts 'Gone With the Wind' to shame when it comes to perpetuating stereotypes about the Deep South.
Granted it doesn't have slaves pickin' cotton under the hot sun - this is 1958 - but that's about the only cliche screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr omit from their  adaptation of William Faulkner's novel 'The Hamlet.'
A star-studded cast of non-southerners pour on the honeychile' accents thicker than molasses as they act out this entirely predictable tale of overheated passions and frustrations in a godforsaken backwater of deepest Mississippi.
Paul Newman is the sexy tomcat with trouble written all across him in flashing neon lettering who sets his sights on Joanne Woodward, a proper southern lady whose prim exterior conceals a bubbling cauldron of lustful longing. Anthony Franciosa plays her inadequate brother struggling manfully to live up to his overbearing father's expectations of what a son should be, and Lee Remick is his sexpot young wife seriously lacking in a sense of decorum. Looming over all of them is Orson Welles as the ultimate parody of a southern patriarch, spouting aphorisms and puffing on a succession of well chewed stogies as he surveys his kingdom and bends everyone to his will.
In the absence of surprise or suspense the only real pleasure is in watching Welles serving

up one of the largest slices of ham ever to grace the silver screen. As the domineering, cruel and manipulative Will Varner he gives a performance absolutely devoid of shame. Not content with simply chewing on the scenery, Welles takes countless greedy bites out of it with an accent so ludicrously overblown that half of what he says is unintelligible, although it's pretty safe to assume that it's mostly nonsense.
Not content with simply sounding ridiculous, Welles is also determined to look ridiculous. To that end his make-up has been applied with a paint brush and chalk dust liberally dusted into his thick head of hair in a vain attempt to convince us the 43 year old actor is a 61 year old father in uncertain health. The result is a sun-burnt clown.
Despite Welles' overpowering presence, Newman more than holds his own, demonstrating genuine star power in what was only his sixth film, but it's not enough to save the film from sinking under the weight of its overblown predictability.