Paul Newman (named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival) drifts into a Mississippi town where leading citizen Welles takes a shine to him, seeing husband material for daughter Joanne Woodward—who married Newman in real life after filming wrapped. Husband-and-wife screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. commenced over three decades of collaboration with Ritt by synthesizing William Faulkner stories for A-list treatment by producer Jerry Wald.