The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

Orson Welles: Will Varner

Photos 

Quotes 

• Will Varner : I got influence. I'll dog you, boy, wherever you go. I'll break you.

  Ben : No, you won't. You'll miss me.

• Will Varner : Thousands of acres out there. Millions of seeds put down in the ground, and every year the seeds come up again. Life goes on. Where's my crop, huh? What follows me? What happens when I'm dead?

  Clara : You'll probably have the biggest funeral in the state of Mississippi.

  Will Varner : That don't scare me none, just so long as there are plenty of Varners to mourn me.

  Clara : Jody and I'll be there.

  Will Varner : You and Jody and Jody's kids and yours and their kids, my descendants, sister, a line, a long line with my face stamped on 'em, my blood flowing in their veins.

  Clara : All of that from the two of us?

• Ben : If you're scared of me, mister, why don't you just come right out and say so?

  Will Varner : Sir, why should I be scared of you?

  Ben : 'Cause I got a reputation for being a dangerous man.

  Will Varner : You're a young dangerous man. I'm an old one. I guess you don't know who I am. I better introduce myself. I'm the big landowner, chief moneylender in these parts. I'm commissioner of elections, veterinarian, own a store and a cotton gin and a grist mill and a blacksmith shop... and it's considered unlucky for a man to do his trading or gin his cotton or grind his meal or shoe his stock anywhere else. Now that's who I am.

  Ben : You talk a lot.

  Will Varner : Well, yes I do, sir. I'm done talking to you, except for passing you on this piece of information. I built me a new jail in my courthouse this year, and if during the course of your stay, something, anything at all should just happen to catch fire, I think you ought to know that in my jail, we never heard of the words habeas corpus. You rot.

• Will Varner : The man that built this place, his name's forgotten. This was his dream and his pride. Now it's dust. Must be a moral there somewhere.

• Will Varner : I'm gonna crawl over them books like an old fly over flypaper.

• Will Varner : Do you know what Quick means in this county? Hellfire. ashes and char. Flame follows that man around like a dog. He's a barn burner.

• Will Varner : I was young myself once. I used to hide in the greenery and hoot and bellow.

  Clara : I'll bet you did. I'll bet you stayed longest and yelled loudest.

  Will Varner : Your mama listened.

• Will Varner : They don't have to see her. They can smell her.

• Will Varner : Listen, I'm gonna get me some man in the Varner family, some good strong strappin' man Varners. That's what I want, Varners and more Varners. Yeah, more Varners still. Enough Varners to infest the countryside. I'm gonna see that happen, sister, before I die. I'm gonna accomplish that, yes ma'am, by means of that Quick, that big stud horse.

• Will Varner : Can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you sure can teach a young willing puppy just about anything.

• Will Varner : Give him time. A penny on the waters pays interest when the flood turns.

• Ben : Well, I'll be damned.

  Will Varner : More than probable, you will be. But first, you're going to church and get married, yeah, to my daughter.

• [to Jody Varner] 

  Will Varner : I put down a big footprint. I said: 'Here. Step here. Fill it.' You never did.

• Will Varner : You got hellfire and damnation in you, Jody Varner, but you got redemption too. When I think of the hate that put me in there and locked the door and set fire to it, and when I think of the love that wouldn't let me go... I got me a son again. I got me a good right arm - and a left.

• Minnie Littlejohn : Will Varner, I heard you was in that fire!

  Will Varner : Simmer down, Minnie. You ain't a rich widow yet.

• Will Varner : I get preached to on Sundays

  Ben : I know, and you don't listen and neither did I.

• Minnie Littlejohn : I made plans, Will, matrimonial plans.

  Will Varner : Now you ain't ever heard me say the word matrimony.

  Minnie Littlejohn : Well now, I'm willing to overlook that.

• Will Varner : She has quality, quality. Which is as close as you and me will ever get to it.

• Will Varner : I've been watching you. I like your push, yes. I like your style. I like your brass. It ain't too dissimilar from the way I operate.