Hud ***** (1963, Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon De Wilde) – Classic Movie Review 230

Paul Newman is stupendous in a chilling performance as Hud, a callous cowboy with a barbed-wire soul. Martin Ritt’s 1963 film portrait of a 60s Texan farming family is an elegiac modern Western and a classic slice of slewed Americana.

Director Martin Ritt’s 1963 portrait of a 60s Texan farming family is an elegiac modern Western and a classic slice of slewed Americana. It’s an overwhelming, emotional tale of troubled youth, in which the American dream has gone wrong and turned sour once again. The 1963 American revisionist Western film Hud was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning three: Patricia Neal for Best Actress, Melvyn Douglas for Best Supporting Actor, and James Wong Howe for Best Black and White Cinematography.

In one of his finest movies, the 38-year-old Oscar-nominated Paul Newman is stupendous in a chilling performance as Hud Brannon, a completely ruthless, nasty, callous, hard-living, boozing cowboy who tarnishes the unhappy lives of all around him. ‘The man with the barbed wire soul’ – how cool is that! Well, he’s also a real heel and a son of a bitch.

The story focuses on his bitter clash with his principled, strict, grave, old-school father, Homer (Melvyn Douglas). But his doting nephew Lonnie (Brandon De Wilde) admires him, even being cool with his illegal shenanigans. But then, even he says: ‘You don’t care about people, Hud.’

It was the third of seven failed attempts at an Oscar for Newman till he finally won for the wrong movie, The Color of Money, in 1987, with two more nominations after. He didn’t attend the awards ceremony and nor did he when he won an honorary award the previous year. In 1963, Newman lost to Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field.

Newman is the star attraction, but there are three other marvellous performances in the movie to support him. With less to do, in some ways Patricia Neal is perhaps even more extraordinary than Newman, winning the Best Actress Oscar as Alma Brown, the family’s housekeeper who is at the end of her tether and makes the mistake of getting involved with Hud. It is really a support performance, with only 22 minutes of screen time, but Neal turns it into a true star role.

Old Melvyn Douglas is remarkable too in his Best Supporting Actor turn as Newman’s scrupulous but crusty father. He’s really quite a difficult man to get along with. Young Brandon De Wilde is extremely effective and appealing as his idealistic nephew Lonnie, who comes on like an older relative of the boy he played when he only 11 in Shane (1953), adoring and clinging to the older man.

James Wong Howe’s sharp and inventive black and white cinematography also won an Oscar. But Ritt and the writer partners Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank (adapting from Larry McMurtry’s 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By) were unfairly overlooked. Their work is absolutely outstanding here and the others couldn’t have won without them. This is an ensemble movie of great team work, with exactly the right personnel assembled.

It is produced by Ritt and Newman’s then recently founded company Salem Productions, and filmed on location on the Texas Panhandle, including Claude, Texas.

Newman prepared by working for 10 days on a Texas ranch, sleeping in a bunkhouse, and was coached in his Texas accent by Bob Hinkle, who had coached James Dean as Jett Rink in Giant.

A poster of Newman in Hud appears in Midnight Cowboy. The ever-cool Newman burnt his tuxedo on his 75^th birthday because he said he was fed up with formality.

Brandon De Wilde [Brandon deWilde], the only one of the four stars not Oscar nominated, collected Douglas’s Oscar for him. De Wilde was Oscar nominated for Shane. He tragically died aged 30 when the camper he was driving to visit his new second wife in hospital hit a parked truck in Denver, Colorado, on July 6, 1972.

The cast are Paul Newman as Hud Bannon, Melvyn Douglas as Homer Bannon, Brandon De Wilde [Brandon deWilde] as Lonnie Bannon, Patricia Neal as Alma Brown, Whit Bissell as Mr Burris, Crahan Denton as Jesse, John Ashley as Hermy, Val Avery as Jose, George Petrie as Joe Scanlon, Curt Conway as Truman Peters, Sheldon Allman as Mr. Thompson, Pitt Herbert as Mr Larker, Carl Low as Mr Kirby, Robert Hinkle as Radio Announcer Frank, Don Kennedy as Charlie Tucker, Sharyn Hillyer as Myra, and Yvette Vickers as Lily Peters.

© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 230

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