The Long, Hot Summer

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The Long, Hot Summer

film by Ritt [1958]

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July 16, 2026

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The Long, Hot Summer is a 1958 American film directed by Martin Ritt. It loosely adapts William Faulkner's novel The Hamlet and two of his short stories. The film is notable for being the first on-screen pairing of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who would later marry.1

Martin Ritt was an American film director known for his socially conscious themes, often focusing on loners or underdogs. His Marxist leanings were evident in his work. Ritt faced blacklisting in the early 1950s due to alleged communist sympathies but continued to direct theatre and teach before returning to filmmaking.1

The Long, Hot Summer marked a significant collaboration between Ritt and screenwriters Harriet Frank, Jr., and Irving Ravetch, who would work together on multiple projects, including another Faulkner adaptation, The Sound and the Fury.1

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Martin Ritt
First films
…Ritt’s work to come was The Long, Hot Summer (1958). Scripted by Harriet Frank, Jr., and Irving Ravetch, with whom Ritt would collaborate repeatedly, the film was a loose adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel The Hamlet and a pair of his short stories. It marked the first on-screen pairing of…
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…Ritt’s work to come was The Long, Hot Summer (1958). Scripted by Harriet Frank, Jr., and Irving Ravetch, with whom Ritt would collaborate repeatedly, the film was a loose adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel The Hamlet and a pair of his short stories. It marked the first on-screen pairing of…
Read More

Angela Lansbury
…The Court Jester (1956), and The Long, Hot Summer (1958). Her most acclaimed screen performance came as Laurence Harvey’s evil incestuous mother in director John Frankenheimer’s Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962). For this film Lansbury received her third Oscar nomination. Her later movies included Death on the Nile…
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…The Court Jester (1956), and The Long, Hot Summer (1958). Her most acclaimed screen performance came as Laurence Harvey’s evil incestuous mother in director John Frankenheimer’s Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962). For this film Lansbury received her third Oscar nomination. Her later movies included Death on the Nile…
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Paul Newman
First films
The Long, Hot Summer (1958), which was based on short stories by William Faulkner, was the first of 10 feature films in which he would costar with Woodward. The drama centres on a drifter who becomes entangled with a wealthy family. In the biopic The…
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The Long, Hot Summer (1958), which was based on short stories by William Faulkner, was the first of 10 feature films in which he would costar with Woodward. The drama centres on a drifter who becomes entangled with a wealthy family. In the biopic The…
Read More

Lee Remick
…role, a flirtatious wife in The Long, Hot Summer (1958). The drama, based on a William Faulkner novel, was directed by Martin Ritt and starred Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
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…role, a flirtatious wife in The Long, Hot Summer (1958). The drama, based on a William Faulkner novel, was directed by Martin Ritt and starred Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
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Joanne Woodward
Woodward and Newman costarred in The Long, Hot Summer, based on two stories and a novel by William Faulkner. Released in 1958, it was the first of their many on-screen collaborations, and they married later that year. Woodward went on to star in a string of successful films, including (opposite…
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Woodward and Newman costarred in The Long, Hot Summer, based on two stories and a novel by William Faulkner. Released in 1958, it was the first of their many on-screen collaborations, and they married later that year. Woodward went on to star in a string of successful films, including (opposite…
Read More