Based on the 1983 novel Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail by Louise Shivers, Michie Gleason’s Summer Heat (1987) succeeds wildly at establishing a suffocating, Depression-era tobacco farm aesthetic, but it fails to accurately map out the human psychology driving its plot.\ \ I enjoyed the film's pacing and look, it’s beautifully atmospheric, sun-drenched Southern setting, but the character development is undeniably weak. For a romantic thriller, there is a distinct lack of heat or tangible magnetism between Lori Singer's Roxy and Bruce Abbott's Jack. Without that undeniable, electric draw, Rox…
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