Hot Spell

Based on the unproduced play Next of Kin, Hot Spell is a New Orleans-set drama about matriarch Alma, whose boundless optimism stands at odds with her husband John’s philandering and her adult children’s desire to move on from the family home. Set during one sweltering summer evening, screenwriter James Poe, who also adapted Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), slowly ratchets up the pressure on the tenuous facade of the happy mid-century nuclear family. Starring a trifecta of Oscar winners—Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952), Anthony Quinn (Wild is the Wind, 1958; Zorba the Greek, 1964), Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment, 1983)—and supported by another—Eileen... Heckart (Butterflies Are Free, 1972) as Alma’s jaded best friend—this tender, layered production offers a heartbreaking view of generational tensions and the nuances of family dynamics.   

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.

1958 | 86 min. | USA | Black-and-White | English | Not Rated | DCP 

DIRECTED BY: Daniel Mann 

WRITTEN BY: James Poe 

WITH: Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn, Shirley MacLaine, Earl Holliman