Warm Up Your Winter With ‘The Hot Spot’ And ‘Hot Saturday’

Winter doesn’t officially begin until next week, but if you’re already starting to feel the chill here’s a double feature to heat up your TV screen.

Temperature-wise, William A. Seiter’s Hot Saturday is pretty cool. There are references to heat, like you’d think it was blistering going by the table fan that pivots during the opening credits. A torch singer sings ‘I’m Burning for You’ but there’s no steam coming off the sidewalks of this small town. If the film fails to project heat, when it comes to the weather, it makes up for the lack of sweat with hot-blooded teenagers.

Ruth (Nancy Carroll) is a working girl who spends Saturdays with “the crowd” and is nobody’s fool. After agreeing to go out with one of her co-workers (Edward Woods), she ends up spending most of the party with Romer (Cary Grant), a wealthy outsider who’s already developed a reputation for living with another woman outside of wedlock.

What’s wild in Hot Saturday might be tame by today’s standards (at one point Ruth scandalously pulls her skirt above one knee), but it’s still a pre-code movie, which means there are moments when Ruth finds herself in various states of undress. All of the quaintness provides a false sense of security, too, because when the town decides to believe some rumors about Ruth there’s nothing gentle about the way they respond. Romer might be the guy they’ve decided to shun, but he’s not the one who gives Ruth trouble (and as a content warning, there is a scene involving sexual assault).

Hot Sunday never puts on kid gloves and the biggest revelation is Carroll, whose performance is so dynamic and relatable, that it’s easy to see why all of the males in this movie are enamored with her. That she started out as a stage and silent film actress tracks, given her range in facial expressions.

Film historian, Lee Gambin, provides the commentary track and makes some really interesting observations about pre-code films compared to women’s pictures in the ’40s and how Hot Saturday addresses class.

For heat, both sexual and feverish, Dennis Hopper’s The Hot Spot is a neo-noir that’s as hot as hot gets. Filmed in Taylor and Austin, Texas, the sun is constantly beating down on the cast in this film. Set in another small town like Hot Saturday’s, this one is practically deserted. It’s not gossip, then, that takes down Harry Maddox (Don Johnson) but his own poor judgement – that and a fabulously unsubtle femme fatale played by Virginia Madsen. Jennifer Connelly co-stars as the colleague-next-door who starts to fall for Harry, and while it doesn’t have “hot” in the title, it would also make a fiery double feature with Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat.

Entertainment journalist and author, Bryan Reesman, talks super-fast in his commentary, and the challenge of keeping up with him can be discouraging. It’s a shame, though, because what Reesman has to say is great. It also should be acknowledged that while you wouldn’t think you’d need to talk fast for a movie that has a two hour plus runtime, Reesman never runs out of information. His Google Maps searches and his interview with Johnson’s stunt double, Pete Antico, are highlights. There’s also a new interview with Madsen and another with William Sadler for this release.

The Hot Spot and Hot Saturday are available on Blu-Ray now from Kino Lorber (The Hot Spot is also available on DVD).