grantss
Homer Bannon is an honest, hard-working, by-the-book Texas rancher. His son, Hud, is quite the opposite - amoral, unscrupulous and tending to prefer chasing married women around, rather than working on the ranch. The two are in constant conflict. Stuck between the two are Lonnie, Hud's nephew, and Alma, the Bannon's live-in housekeeper. Lonnie is a naive, impressionable young man who simultaneously idolises Hud and despises some of the things he does. Alma is constantly positive, is happy to overlook Hud's antagonism and tries to stay out of the fights. What happened to Lonnie's father, Hud's brother, hangs over the family, but nobody dares speak about it. The feud between Hud and his father comes to a head when a possible epidemic strikes their cattle herd...Great character drama, driven by some fantastic performances. Plot is a bit of a slow-burner, though it is never dull. The interactions between the main characters drive the movie, and your engagement.Quite powerful ending.As mentioned, it is the performances that drive this. Three of the four main actors - Paul Newman (as Hud), Melvyn Douglas (Homer) and Patricia Neal (Alma) got Oscar nominations with Douglas and Neal picking up Oscars (for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively). Paul Newman, who is superb in a rare bad guy role, missed out to Sydney Poitier in Lilies of the Field.Brandon De Wild, the only one of the four to not get an Oscar nomination, is great as Lonnie and is unrecognisable from the irritating kid who yelled "Shane! Shane!" all the time in Shane.How this movie didn't get nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in a year when the eventual winner was the mediocre Tom Jones, I don't know.
LeonLouisRicci
Minimalist Movie with Maximum Performances from All Four Major Players. It is a Widescreen Landscape of Wide Open Spaces Perfected by Legendary Lenser James Wong Howe. The Ranch Owned by Melvin Douglas, Papa Bannon, is One Disease Away from Disaster. The No-Account, Ungrateful Paul Newman, Hud Bannon, is the Tornado that the Story Swirls. Hud's, Nephew and Pappa's Grandchild Brandon De Wilde, Lonnie Bannon, is a Straight and Considerate Teenager who Looks Up to His Uncle Hud as Hero. The Hardworking, Easy Going Middle-Aged but Still Pretty Housekeeper to the Bannon Clan is Patricia Neal, Alma.That's the Quartet of Dusty Downwards that Populate this Gritty Story and it is Interesting but Not Altogether Fascinating to Watch these Folks as Fate Deals a Deathly Hand in this Poker Game of Life. The Film is on One Wavelength and Rarely Wavers. It is a Straightforward Telling of Real People Dealing with Real Life. One of the Movie's Strength, besides the Great Acting, is its Ability to Not Look Dated, in All Respects. The Ranch, the People, the Story, the Dialog, the Score, the Look, is Timeless and Makes the Film just as Powerful Today as 50 Years Ago.But ironically, Considering the Setting, there is Little Breadth or Scope and the Film is a Confinement of Principals in a Very Large Space. The Tone is Singular and the Story is Familiar. The Film is a Fine Hollywood Production with Superb Technical Accomplishments. It's got a Soap-Opera Feel and it Wears a Somewhat Trashy Novel Approach on its Sleeve. Powerful at Times and a Bit Flat at Others. The Greased Pigs and the Juke Joint seem Stuck In for No Apparent Reason Except to Give Lonnie a Chance to get Drunk with Hud. The Scene, and a Few Others, are so Unremarkable and Ho Hum They Seem Out of Place and don't Belong in a Movie that is So Good Otherwise. Not a Masterpiece but a Very Good Production with Outstanding Acting, a Good Look, and Overall Overrated.
ferbs54
Although Paul Newman portrayed any number of drunkards, layabouts, thieves, con men, bastards and seedy, shady, unreliable cads during the course of his justly celebrated, 50+-year career, perhaps no other character was such a complete and utter, irredeemable turd as the one he played in "Hud." As a matter of fact, in an interview done years later, the film's director, Martin Ritt, revealed that most studios passed on the project, deeming the lead character and subject matter too unpleasant, and that even Newman's manager advised the actor not to participate. Newman was at this point emerging as a genuine superstar, by dint of recent portrayals in films such as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Exodus," "The Hustler" and "Sweet Bird of Youth," but fortunately never let an unsavory character prevent him from taking on a meaty role. Based on Larry McMurtry's first novel, 1961's "Horseman, Pass By," and filmed largely in and about the tiny Texas town of Claude (in the panhandle), "Hud" was released in May 1963 to great acclaim and remains a most powerful experience, now 50 years later.In the film, the viewer makes the acquaintance of 34-year-old Hud Bannon (Newman, natch), a hard-drinking, inveterate womanizer in modern-day Texas. Hud lives on his father Homer's cattle ranch, along with his 17-year-old nephew Lon, who idolizes him, and housekeeper Alma, spending his days working on the ranch and his nights carousing in town and chasing after married women. Homer, an old-fashioned man of unfailing rectitude, detests Hud's wanton ways and basic immorality, telling him at one point "You're an unprincipled man, Hud." And the relationship between the two becomes strained even further when an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease forces Homer to consider the terrible prospect of exterminating his entire herd, while Hud urges him to just sell the lot to an unsuspecting buyer. And before long, a family tragedy that transpired years before is revealed, while Hud makes plans to wrest his father's empire away from him...."Hud" features any number of attributes that combine to make it a powerful achievement, but foremost are the thesping jobs turned in by its four leads. Patricia Neal, as Alma, won a Best Actress Oscar for her work here, despite the fact that her role is more of a supporting one; still, she is quite excellent, earthy and sexy and memorable. Also copping an Oscar for his work here was Melvyn Douglas, who is truly astonishing as the upright Homer. Douglas was 62 here, but looked much older, and in truth, the man looks nothing like the dapper gent who featured in such '30s comedies as "Theodora Goes Wild" and "Ninotchka"; he certainly did not age as well as Paul Newman (but then again, what human male in all of history ever did?!?!). As Lon, Brandon de Wilde, all grown up here since 1953's "Shane," also gives a wonderful performance, sensitive and likable. A good-looking kid with a healthy interest in girls, Lon is understandably attracted to Hud's loose and easygoing ways, although his attitude toward his uncle gradually changes as the film proceeds. And as for Newman, need it even be mentioned how terrific he is as the dirtbag Hud? A complete louse, Hud at one point tries to blame his nephew for an affair that he, Hud, had been having with a married woman; makes repeated crude advances on Alma; attempts to rape Alma, in one shocking sequence; uses Lon's affection to help him sway the boy against his own grandfather; and, as already mentioned, urges Homer to sell diseased cattle and conspires against his own father. Newman deservedly earned an Oscar nomination here, ultimately "losing" to Sidney Poitier's work in "Lilies of the Field." Charismatic and strangely appealing, this is a character who you will hate to admire, but one that you'll surely find hard to shake."Hud," other than those four towering performances, features some nicely sensitive direction from Ritt, who had previously worked with Newman on "The Long Hot Summer" and who would go on to direct him in "The Outrage" and "Hombre." The film has been beautifully shot in B&W wide-screen Panavision by the great James Wong Howe, features a lovely theme song, by Elmer Bernstein, on acoustic guitar (how different this theme is from Bernstein's bold and brassy score for "The Man With the Golden Arm," or his classic theme for "The Magnificent Seven," or his slinky, jazzish theme for "Walk on the Wild Side"!), and uncharacteristically unglamorous costumes by the legendary Edith Head. And the picture boasts a script--written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.--containing so many wonderful lines that you'll feel compelled to write some of them down. I love it when Hud proclaims "Nobody gets out of life alive," and when he says of Homer's pooh-poohing the suggestion that they drill for oil on their land, "My Daddy thinks that oil is something you stick in your salad dressing." (And who knows more about salad dressing than Paul Newman, right?) The picture also spotlights the late cult actress Yvette Vickers in one of her later roles and flies in the face of the then-still-in-force Production Code with its use of the words "bitch" and "bastard." A literate, adult film with any number of wonderful scenes, "Hud" really is a complete triumph for all concerned. How interesting it would have been to revisit Hud Bannon in a sequel, a la hustler Eddie Felson in "The Color of Money," to see if he might have changed any; grown softer and more decent with the years. But if the film's superrealistic final moments are any indicator, I wouldn't count on it....
