A 1958 drama directed by Martin Ritt and partially based on three William Faulker works. Starring Paul Newman and Orson Welles. Starring the charismatic Paul Newman, it is a story of an accused barn burner and con man Ben Quick who arrives in a small Mississippi town and quickly ingratiates himself with its richest family, the Varners.   Paul Newman plays Ben Quick, the mysterious drifter who stirs up a town and its women when he hitches up in Frenchman s Bend, Mississippi, where life is dominated by elderly patriarch Will Varner (Orson Welles).