The 1958 film "The Long Hot Summer" is about a Mississippi man who thinks that he has found a Confederate treasure but discovers a 1910 silver dollar. The film stars Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and Orson Welles and is set in the state of Mississippi at the current time. It is based on Mississippi author William Faulkner's novel The Hamlet and two short stories. A drifter gets a job on a plantation and develops a relationship with the owner's daughter. The owner then gives the drifter a small piece of land where a legend states that there is a cache of money buried during the Civil War. US silver dollars appear several times in the film.

Drifter Ben Quick arrives near the Mississippi town of Frenchman's Bend and is picked up and driven the rest of the way to the town by two women, Eula and Clara.

They pass Varner's store.

Will Varner owns most of the town, including a plantation, bank, general store, and cotton gin. Will has a son Jody who is married to Eula and a daughter Clara who is not married. Will also has a longtime girlfriend Minnie who also would like to get married. Jody hires Ben to work on the plantation. Will Varner returns from a hospital stay and finds out about the new employee, who has a reputation for being a "barn burner", a man who settles grudges by burning barns, a very serious offense. Ben starts teasing Clara as an "old maid" and implying that he can show her a good time in bed.

Will Varner begins to like Ben and gives him more important jobs. Jody complains to his father about Ben.

Jody resents the attention that his father has been paying to Ben. Will Varner takes Ben out to a piece of land called the Old Frenchman's Place and gives it to him for his services.

Will tells Ben that there is a legend that during the Civil War, the owners buried a lot of coin money because General Grant's Union Army was approaching the area. Will and Ben share interests, including playing cards.

Ben is holding a silver dollar. The coin might be a prop coin or it could be a real coin as most silver dollars were worth only their face value in 1958 when the film was made. Jody and Eula have no children and Will wants to have grandchildren. Clara has been "going with" a local society man, Alan, for a long time but neither have shown any interest in marriage. Will suggests that Ben and Clara get married and produce children. Ben continues approaching Clara who knows about her father's wishes.

Jody is becoming increasingly frustrated at his father's preference for Ben and things are not helped by Jody's wife refusing his romantic advances. At a picnic, Jody decides to force a showdown.

Ben holds out a handful of coins and tells Jody that he found them on the Frenchman's place. The two men head there and start digging.

Jody finds a bag of silver dollars and buys the land from Ben for $1,000. He spends every night away from home digging on the property and one night Will Varner arrives and asks him what he is doing. Jody hands Will a silver dollar and he examines the coin while Jody tell him:

Will asks Jody:

The United States did not mint any silver dollars in 1910 so the identity of the coin is unknown. The date 1910 is only in the film, not the novel (see below).

Will continues:

Will leaves and Jody walks around swearing that he will kill Will.

Will and Clara have a talk and he asks her again to produce grandchildren for him. Clara sees her boyfriend Alan asks him if he ever had any physical interest in her and he replies not. They agree to quietly end the relationship. Jody, still angry, finds his father in the barn, locks the door and sets a fire.

Jody hears his father's screams and opens the door to let him out. The two men reconcile as Will sees that Jody is capable of action and redemption. The Varners and their employees put out the fire. The smoke from the fire is seen in the town and a small group of men head there.

Will Varner tells the arrivals that he accidently set the fire. Will and his girlfriend decide to get married and Jody and Eula get back together. Ben goes to see Clara and tells her that his father was an infamous "barn burner" who disappeared when Ben was ten years old. He then tells her that he is leaving town but Clara changes his mind.

The film ends with Will Varner's prospects for grandchildren greatly increased.

The film was partly based on William Faulkner's 1940 novel The Hamlet which is set around 1900. A man, Flem Snopes, owns a small piece of land and a house known as the "Old Frenchman's Place", and three local men, Ratliff, Armstid, and Bookwright, have been sneaking onto the property at night and digging for a treasure buried by the "Old Frenchman" in 1861. The men use folk magic and find three small bags of silver dollars, they then buy the land from Snopes for an unstated amount. The men then look into the bags and discover silver dollars dated 1871, 1879, and "one made last year." All of these dates would be legitimate dates for silver dollars, the 1871 would be a Seated Liberty type, the 1879 and the "one made last year" would be Morgan types.

Paul Newman as Ben Quick
Joanne Woodward as Clara Varner
Orson Welles as Will Varner
Anthony Franciosa as Jody Varner
Lee Remick as Eula Varner
Director: Martin Ritt
Writers: Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr., William Faulkner (novel)