Hud (1963)

Everything there is to say has been said about this film. Look out for a memorable scene between Lon and his grandfather when they go to the cinema. They sing along to My Darling Clementine. It's a scene of pure joy, simple yet touching. You could find something to praise in every scene of the movie. To be watched again and again!

One reviewer wrote a lengthy review touching upon the dark side of human nature. Some believe we are all capable of behaving just as Paul Newsman's "Hud" character. That is just not so. Hud appears as a rowdy hard drinking womanizing cowboy living in the Texas panhandle 1961 on his father's ranch. What Hud really is is a classic example of a sociopath. The person who cares only about himself. Period. He has all the traits and no sympathy for the plight of others or the damage he does to them. Everyone is a victim to a sociopath. Most sociopaths are not serial killers but every serial killer is a sociopath. Hud's victim is his father and he plays it just cool enough to be welcomed but not enjoyed in the home. Hud knows that when his father dies the ranch will be his. The only other heir was his brother who was killed when drinking with Hud years earlier. Hud knows but it is not mentioned much that there is oil and gas waiting to be drilled on the ranch. The father will not consent to "punching holes" in his land...Not while he is alive he says anyway. Hud's nephew does not know this neither does his father or the housekeeper but they all know Hud is a tornado in their lives. Had they known he was a sociopath they would have sent him down the road. A sociopath does not know nor care about right or wrong and they will never change or be cured. They learn their victim's weaknesses and play on them. Newman and Melvyn Douglas show that they are two fine actors in this film, none better. Filming Hud in black and white makes the movie timeless. Why John Mellencamp was so enamored by this film that he stole some lines from the film for his own songs and named his son Hud is certainly a question to which I would be interested to know the answer.

If you only watch one Paul Newman movie in your life, watch Hud.A bad boy with sex appeal oozing off the screen, Hud is hard to resist. He's quick with a fight, a one-liner, and a love-and-run romance. He's bad news, but the audience can't help but like and root for him. He's positively magnetic, but two characters in the film resist him. His father, Melvyn Douglas, clashes with him at every turn, and their fights are devastating to watch. And Patricia Neal, the woman with more willpower than any woman alive.Newman and Neal spark, sizzle, and scorch. It's worth watching the film just to feel their chemistry. Neal won the Best Actress Oscar, and Melvyn Douglas won Best Supporting Actor, but unfortunately Paul Newman lost his contest. Sidney Poitier won his make-up Oscar that year (Lilies of the Field, as an apology for losing the Oscar for The Defiant Ones in 1959 and not being nominated for A Raisin in the Sun in 1962), but Paul Newman would have to wait 25 years to receive his make-up Oscar.Hud is a classic, but it's a heavy drama, so make sure you're in the right mood when you rent it. It's really fantastic, and the script is smart, sexy, and sorrowful. It's too bad the Academy was so taken with Tom Jones that year; Hud lost the adapted screenplay award and wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. At least director Martin Ritt was nominated. He directed five Paul Newman movies, and this one really shows off his talents.

Rare to see Paul Newman play such an anti-hero and it's clear he relishes it. Counterpointed by strong performances from veteran Melvyn Douglas as his long- suffering father, Patricia Neal as their worldly housemaid and the young newcomer Brandon De Wilde as the impressionable youth whose loyalties are tried, tested and ultimately destroyed by Uncle Hud's selfishness and boorishness.These four actors and their characters' inter-relationships are pretty much the movie in a story that feels at times theatrical but in fact was adapted from a novel. I'd describe the plot as like "Shane" reflected through Tennessee Williams, so that the perhaps mis-directed hero-worship of a young man is this time thwarted by an idol with feet of clay.Throughout the film, Hud does nothing admirable or selfless and sort of tolerates the young acolyte trailing in his wake before a drunken attempted rape of Neal breaks the spell. I didn't however like Neal's acceptance of her ordeal, especially when she says she would have eventually let him have her in the future, betraying an unacceptable streak of chauvinism in the writing. Better to watch are the tensions and conflicts between grandfather-patriarch Douglas, errant, number two son Hud (we're made aware that Hud is responsible for the premature death of the elder son, De Wilde's father) and De Wilde himself, torn between his admiration of the former and misplaced envy of the latter's hedonism.Newman's on record as saying this is one of his favourite of his own movies and it's easy to see why. He's hardly every off the screen and he's excellent in his cast-against-type lead role. A contemporary Western shot in beautifully-lit black and white by James Wong Howe and sensitively directed by Martin Ritt, this was a gripping and involving family saga featuring a great star turn by one of the best actors of the 60's.