The SEX! (now that I have your attention) Blogathon

Steve of Movie Movie Blog Blog has conjured up a clever idea for a blogathon where the rules are as followed:

1. You need to write about an entire movie that you find sexy, not just a single scene. The upside-down kiss in the 2001 Spider-Man movie was undeniably sexy, but unless you can make a case for the entire movie being a turn-on, please don’t write about it. 

2. The movie you choose can be from any era (even silent), but it needs to be a movie that subtly suggests sex. No writhing, naked bodies, and no explicit dialogue about how much one person wants to go to bed with another. 

That’s not to say that your choice can’t be a modern movie with adult dialogue. If you can make a solid case for something like, say, Body Heat (which was a modern homage to 1940’s-style movie sex), I’ll accept it. 

3. Explain why you think the movie is sexy. Your explanation does not have to be lurid or explicit, just a simple description of why the movie “does something” for you.

Sounds simple enough. So what did I choose for this?

(1958, dir. Martin Ritt) 

You gotta love movies from the 1950s. You could just tell where in the movie the writers were trying to get away with an innuendo or two. And considering the 1950s heralded some of the sexiest actors Hollywood had ever seen, it just made it all the more potent.

And let's be real, who was sexier than Paul Newman? (No one, that's who.) And thank God that Ritt used this man's appeal to the fullest. I mean, look at him. (Man, how did women manage to live past 1958 with the release of both The Long, Hot Summer AND Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?)

It also certainly doesn't hurt that this movie drew Newman and Joanne Woodward together. Quite frankly, it's pretty clear as to why. The man just oozes charisma, and what self-respecting woman could resist that? (Side note: they were married the same year the movie was released, and stayed married until Newman's death in 2008. You certainly don't see that nowadays.)

But it isn't just the scenes between Newman and Woodward that revolve around sex. The early scenes between Eula (Lee Remick) and Jody (Anthony Franciosa) have them as an insatiable young married couple. (Hays Code or not, it's pretty obvious what they're doing offscreen. Subtlety isn't something often applied to scenes of that nature.) Though it's also pretty clear that Eula is a main draw for most of the men in town, and Jody isn't too proud of it. (Maybe this movie was what prompted the producers of Anatomy of a Murder to hire Remick?)

Similarly, the affair between Will (Orson Welles) and Minnie (Angela Lansbury) is also a complicated one. After ten years of being Will's mistress, Minnie wants a wedding ring on her finger. Will, however, doesn't. (Evidently insecure romances are hereditary.)

Though the movie has its ups and downs, The Long, Hot Summer still maintains a sexual air after all these years. (Hey, you're witnessing the fruition of one of the longest-lasting Hollywood couples after all.) Amid these three fictional tangled romances is a story of complicated people and their temptations.