What a Southern story, what a writer, what a cast and ride! In its dramatic content and tension, this Faulkner story reminded me another Southern story by another Southern writer Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, also shot in 1957 and released in 1958, and also starring the impossibly handsome Paul Newman.

There are other parallels between the Cat and the Hot Summer -- both have an ambitious, blunt and aging patriarch at its center, played with explosive bravado by Orson Welles (Summer) and Burl Ives (Cat).

Then there is the son in both films, a son who thinks he is neglected and even slighted by his father's inattention and correctly so because in both films the Big Bad Dad does not think the son (elder son in Cat) has got what it takes to cut the mustard.

Yet, the lead characters are almost the opposite. In the Cat, Paul Newman's Brick Pollitt is an alcoholic and heart-broken ex-jock eaten from inside by jealousy and a deep sense of inadequacy. He blames himself for a number of things in life, including the suicide of his closest friend. He is a walking wreck that takes the better part of two hours to turn around.

In the Long Hot Summer, on the other hand, Ben Quick (Newman) is a brash hustler on the go. He has the brass to take any dilemma by the horns. He is a meat eater, as he tells his opposite Clara (Joanne Woodward), who takes it raw if he has to. And as such he is the mirror reflection of the patriarch Will Varner, brought to life with vengeance by a growling and very combustible Orson Welles who in 1957 was at the bottom of his directing career with many flops to his name and was trying but to make some money and redeem his artistic license as an actor. He is hypnotizing in every scene he appears.

The juicy script full of earthy tones and suggestive language penned by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. is actually a skillful adaptation of six different stories by the venerable William Faulkner. But the scriptwriters did such a good job that it feels like one single story from beginning to end indeed.

Producer Jerry Wald brought out the black-listed director Martin Ritt out of the land of the dead and breathed a new wind into his sails by asking Ritt to direct this Southern drama that ends well.

Although shot by a meager total budget of $1.5 million, thanks to the sizzling chemistry between New man and Woodward (which ended up in their marriage in real life) the Summer lacks nothing in dramatic conflict and pure cinematic value.

Angela Lansburry as Minnie Littlejohn plays the town whore who gets the Big Daddy in the end.

One should also mention the 21 year old Lee Remick, as Will Varner's good for nothing emotionally-stunted son Jody's (Anthony Franciosa) fiance, giving an exquisite performance as the delightful and spoiled Southern belle for whom life is a game and an occasion for being taken care of by a rich and powerful man.

Anthony Franciosa, who was at the time married to Shelly Winters, perhaps did not have to try hard to play the nervous and jittery son since in that same year he had a bad traffic accident and was facing 30 days in jail. Interestingly, his ex-wife Shelly Winters died on January 14, 2006. And so did Franciosa just five days later.

The Long Hot Summer concludes with Quick joining the family as Clara's husband, the right man to continue Will's lineage with many children and grandchildren that the patriarch desired so desperately.

A hot 9 out of 10.