Hot Spell

Shirley Booth was one of those few actresses that could break your heart with a glance over the shoulder, a flutter of the hand, a stumbling voice.

Like Geraldine Page in "A Trip To Bountiful," Cecily Tyson in "A Woman Called Moses" or Jessica Tandy in "The Gin Game," her performance stays with you for years afterward.

I pitied her in this film - a cheating husband; children who tried their best to protect her from the truth while covering for their dad. She was a woman who lived in the past, longing to return to the happier times in her life in a small town where she first met her husband and a town, New Paris, where she had good friends and family.

Anthony Quinn was like a lot of men, who are addicted to sex and loose women. His wife, heavy-set and clinging was quite aware that she could not compete with the younger, shapelier girls her husband craved.

Eileen Heckart was wonderful as her good friend who tried to give her hope, but knew it wasn't possible, that her friend was doomed to failure with this man.

I believe this movie was from a novel by Lonnie Coleman called "Next of Kin," which I thought was a better title for the film. Hollywood had a tendency to "soup up" titles to make them sound sexy to draw in customers. They did the same thing with Joanne Woodward's "The Stripper," which was based on a Broadway play called "A Loss of Roses," clearly a much better title and probably the reason that the picture didn't get much respect.