This William Faulkner story was transformed by writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. (though Faulkner is given first billing) into a rather flat, dry, Southern melodrama. With such luminaries as Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Orson Welles as the despotic family head (and shoulders and stomach and spleen), one expects a hightened level of Mississippi-style histrionics. In Ritt’s hands, however, much of it comes across as desperate blustering by people attempting to force human connections. It’s not so much a hot summer as it is a drained one. And I bet you five bucks Ritt didn’t know Mississippi from Idaho.
by Marlin Tyree | Source: 20th Century Fox DVD
18 Jun 2007 5:35 PM | Submit Comment