All right. Hold on to your hat. This movie proves that James Dean or Marlon Brando couldn’t hold a candle to bad boy Paul Newman when it came to portraying alienated rebellious youth against the establishment.
Paul Newman’s Hud Bannon is a career performance and don’t let anybody tell you it isn’t. Hud represented the whole malaise of the 60s with his pithy comments on life. Forget about Rebel Without a Cause or The Wild One, let Hud tell you about life. For example,
You don't look out for yourself, the only helping hand you'll ever get is when they lower the box.
This world is so full of crap, a man's gonna get into it sooner or later whether he's careful or not.
Nobody gets out of life alive.
Hud is the unprincipled scion of a Texas cattle ranch owned by his upright principled father, well portrayed by Melvyn Douglas who deservedly won a Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
Hud is a tragedy that could have been lifted from the pages of the Bible or classic Greek theater. From a book by Larry McMurty, the screen adaptation creates a fascination that keeps the viewer’s eyes glued to the screen. The story is about changing times and changing values and rites of passage. From Homer (Douglas), to Hud (Newman), to Hud’s nephew Lon (Brandon de Wilde).
Hud is responsible for the death of his brother fifteen years earlier and Homer will never let him forget it. Lon is at an impressionable age and wants to be just like Unca Hud, with his Cadillac convertible and carefree frolics with married girlfriends.
Director Martin Ritt framed every shot to have meaning, just as he did in Richard Burton’s finest movie The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Every scene is rife with symbolism about sexuality, alienation, desolation, and more. Photography by James Wong Howe earned him a well deserved Oscar.
As Hud, Newman is a timeless heel, with no redeeming qualities, yet, we somehow identify with him. A likeable heel, how many actors can do that? A real diamond in the rough is Patricia Neal, as the housekeeper Alma, with her loose hipped, good natured sexuality, she is a continual challenge to Hud (and Lon) but she is too smart for him. Hud parks his Cadillac on her flower bed to show who’s boss. Neal also won a Best Actress Oscar for her role. The real crime was no Oscar for Newman and no Oscar for Best Picture, but you know the Academy, they seldom get it right! :>
Anybody who wants to see how a real SOB should be played needs to see this film. It is a timeless classic.
Martin Ritt's HUD is an adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel HORSEMAN PASS BY successfully transformed into an entertaining and ambitious contemporary...More at Family Video
Paul Newman is Hud, a man at odds with his father, tradition and himself. Hud s only interests are fighting, drinking, hot-rodding his Cadillac and wo...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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