Country: USA
Year: 1958
Duration: 115'
Ben Quick (Newman) is a homeless young man with a history of pyromania. He finds work in a farm in the South, gaining the trust of the farm’s owner, Will Varner (Welles) and, over time, also the love his daughter Clara. But his sinister charm sparks the hostility of the entire town, starting with Varner’s son, who is envious of his father’s esteem for Ben. The impulses of a scorching summer will result in an attempted lynching. Based on the short stories “Barn Burning” and “The Spotted Horses,” and on the novel The Hamlet by William Faulkner, a typical melodrama of the 1950s, with an exaggerated style and an extraordinary cast, from the duo Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman for the first time onscreen together (Newman also won Best Actor at Cannes), to a gigantic (in every sense of the word) Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, and Angela Lansbury.
Biography
film director
Martin Ritt
(New York, 1914 – Santa Monica, 1990), American director, film producer, and playwright, linked his name to Hollywood cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, in a phase halfway between the decline of the Studio System and the birth of New Hollywood, interpreting the tensions of his time and remaining faithful to the methods of classic cinema. He worked with the greatest actors (and others) of his generation, from Orson Welles to Paul Newman (both in The Long, Hot Summer), from Sidney Poitier to John Cassavetes (together in Edge of the City), and then with the faces of the new American cinema, Woody Allen (The Front), Sally Field (Norma Rae, Oscar for Best Actress), Robert De Niro and Jane Fonda, a splendid mature couple in Stanley & Iris, her last film.
FILMOGRAFIA
Edge of the City (Nel fango della periferia, 1957), No Down Payment (Un urlo nella notte, 1957), The Black Orchid (Orchidea nera, 1958), The Long, Hot Summer (La lunga estate calda, 1958), The Sound and the Fury (L’urlo e la furia, 1959), 5 Branded Women (Jovanka e le altre, 1960), Paris Blues (1961), Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man (Le avventure di un giovane, 1962), Hud (Hud il selvaggio, 1963), The Outrage (L’oltraggio, 1964), The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (La spia che venne dal freddo, 1965), Hombre (1967), The Brotherhood (La fratellanza, 1968), The Molly Maguires (I cospiratori, 1970), The Great White Hope (Per salire più in basso, 1970), Sounder (1972), Pete ‘n’ Tillie (Un marito per Tillie, 1972), Conrack (1974), Der Richter und sein Henker (Assassinio sul ponte, 1975, attore), The Front (Il prestanome, 1976), Casey’s Shadow (Ultimo handicap, 1978), Norma Rae (1979), Back Roads (1981), Cross Creek (La foresta silenziosa, 1983), Murphy’s Romance (L’amore di Murphy, 1985), Nuts (Pazza, 1987), Stanley & Iris (Lettere d’amore, 1990).
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR: Martin Ritt. STORY: from the short stories Barn Burning and The Spotted Horses and from the novel The Hamlet di William Faulkner. SCREENPLAY: Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Joseph LaShelle. EDITING: Louis R. Loeffler. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Eli Benneche, Walter M. Scott. COSTUME DESIGN: Adele Palmer. MUSIC: Alex North. CAST: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury, Richard Anderson, Sarah Marshall, Mabel Albertson, J. Pat O’Malley, William Walker. PRODUCTION: Jerry Wald for 20th Century Fox.
CONTACT: Park Circus www.parkcircus.com
