Hud [DVD] [1963]

Hud looks very simple on the surface. The Bannon family consists of patriarch Homer Bannon, his son Hud Bannon and grandson Lonnie Bannon, the son of Hud's deceased brother. Working an arid ranch in the Texas Panhandle, they retain Alma Brown as a housekeeper and cook, and she lives in a small, one-room cottage near the ranch house. When one of the cattle is found dead a crisis slowly begins to unwind.Beneath this simple exterior lie many deep, dark and powerful forces that will be unleashed as the decidedly different personalities of Hud and Homer come to the surface with young Lonnie caught in the middle with his admiration of both of them. Alma is also caught in the middle with the attentions of both Hud and Lonnie. Government regulations and officials, small town life and gossip and the power of nature also intrude themselves until the story becomes practically a Shakespearean tragedy.The power is in the acting as well as the writing. Melvin Douglas won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Homer, a man of high principles flawde by his unyielding nature. Paul Newman was nominated as Best Actor for his role of Hud, whose charm and charisma barely conceal a host of flaws that border on the criminal. Patricia Neal won A Best Actress Oscar as Alma, a very down home country woman whose plain exterior cannot conceal her earthy sexuality. To see her range, though one would mistake her here for a truckstop waitress in Amarillo, just about a year before she played the rich, sophisticated woman who kept Paul Varjak (George Peppard) as her boy-toy in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Brandon de Wilde is open and impressionable as Lonnie in what is the most memorable role in his sadly short career (unless you count his child's role in Shane). It's great ensemble acting in every way.All this is captured perfectly in the brilliant black and white Panavision of James Wong Howe who also won an Academy Award for his work. For those who don't remember, serious films were shot in black and white until the mid-Sixties, with color left for musicals, comedies and genre pieces.Since this was a Western and thus a genre film, the studio fought the decision to use black and white but director Martin Ritt knew this was no run of the mill Western and refused to change to color. The studio also did not like the way Hud's character was written and also wanted the ending changed. As is usually the case, we are lucky the director, writers and cast refused to budge on these issues. The cinematography not only highlights the emotions of the characters but beautifully accentuates the vastness of the Plains and the tiny size of the towns and ranches where lives are lived against this vast solitude.Most interesting over the years has been the reaction to the character of Hud. He was written and played to be corrupt and rotten man of no good character, audiences took to him from the beginning and saw him as a hero. To some extent this was due to Newman's unmistakable charisma and charm that would overshadow the flaws in any character. Also, this is 1963 and times were already changing and audiences were perhaps already responding to an anti-hero type, a type who would become prominent by the late Sixties.Hud is a real experience and not to be missed.

"Hud," is available just now or a few minutes ago for free at, "Amazon Prime Video," with a paid subscription, or perhaps even a free introductory offer. I first saw the film when it was still film, in the late sixties when I was a senior in high school. Paul Newman's name appears before the title; which leads me to believe he was already a film star and was probably born in the late twenties or early in 'the dirty thirties', before FDR. "Hud," was directed by Martin Ritt, of no other particular fame that I know of, and co-starred Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, and Brandon de Wilde. They all were superb in playing their parts. Newman's co-stars portray various people in Hud's life: his father, his cook, and his nephew; but, "Hud," is about Hud, his light gray convertible Cadillac we imagine is pink and his pretty roan horse with one dark eye and one light one we imagine is blue. Hud's interests are lying, cheating, stealing, showing off his unending conquests, and smiling and laughter while he destroys. He isn't looking for a therapist. Wached on "Prime", "Hud," appears to have been shot in black and white 8mm super wide-screen with very good stability and sound, but real picture clarity always seems to be lacking on my 1920 X 1080 laptop's 17" screen, but then I'm used to the best on Youtube, or even my computer's wallpaper. Maybe, "Hud," taught us about what some so-called 'real men' might be able to get away with. But, I don't think that was its intention. His father can't imagine how he could have created him, but accepts that he has. The old man, Melvyn Douglas, shoots and kills his beloved long horns all by himself and a rifle. Hud's character had the worst case of foot 'n mouth disease in the film, but was seemingly spared. Maybe, he had better lawyers. They are pledged, aren't they, to try to get you off with anything that they think is legal? It kinda reminds me of us and our current situation. We live in "Ike's military industrial complex" with Wall Street; but Hollywood and Dollywood and Baliwood, along with the internet, should be mentioned. - R

Don't miss this film. It is one of the great ones in every way. Based on the short novel "Horseman, Pass By" by Larry McMurtry (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, LONESOME DOVE) it tells the story of cattle rancher Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas), his rowdy younger son Hud (Paul Newman), and good-natured grandson Lonnie (Brandon De Wilde), Hud's nephew. The Bannons employ an attractive, efficient and very likeable cook/housekeeper/laundress named Alma (Patricia Neal). The Bannons' cattle contract hoof-and-mouth disease and the life of each of these four people, as they know it, begins to unravel.In my humble opinion, this is one of Newman's three greatest performances (the other two being in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" and "Cool Hand Luke"). Newman deserved the best actor Oscar for "Hud," but did not receive it. Patricia Neal was never better and won the best actress award for her work here, and Melvyn Douglass received the best supporting-actor Oscar. Brandon De Wilde is equally excellent.The black-and-white Oscar-winning cinematography by the master James Wong Howe is flawless in capturing the barren and awesomely expansive landscape of north Texas cattle country, as well as small town Texas. The film is set in contemporary time (1963).The characterizations, storyline, acting, dialog, sparse musical score (by Elmer Bernstein) and photography are all first-rate. You are drawn into the lives of these people and care what happens to them. Newman plays Hud perfectly as a "nothing gets to me" young man who, in his father's words "has no checks on [his] appetites."Martin Ritt is the director, and in my opinion this is his finest work. You won't forget this film.

Attore fantastico. Il film è’ un classico.

Excellent dvd ce film na pas pris une ride belle image noir et blanc son de qualité décors naturels somptueux des excellents acteurs je recommande ce film et ce dvd de qualité

Hud as a character is one of those anti-heroes with nothing to recommend him, a selfish, shiftless, immature rebel with no discernible cause. Cocksure, smug and arrogant, he’s repellant, a petulant bully. He’s good looking, this we can readily admit, but even this he ruins by thinking it gives him carte blanche access to women (single or not) as God’s gift to women. Of course he isn’t very bright. Instead, he’s angry, bitter, confused and resentful. He’s also an abusive drunk — abusive to all, but especially to his father, an elderly cattle rancher in Texas on whose ranch Hud still lives at age 34. He’s abusive to Alma too, the family cook and cleaner, an attractive woman in her late 30s who resists his crude macho innuendos as well as a drunken attempt by him to rape her on one hot summer night. He’s abusive to Lonnie, his 16-year-old impressionable nephew, though Hud wouldn’t see it that way. Instead, he’s trying to make a man out of the shy lad by initiating him into manhood via joyrides and drinking binges together. As for women, Lonnie is inexperienced with them but knows how a gentleman ought to treat them, which is more than Hud has learned in living twice as long as Lonnie has.Paul Newman is brilliant of course. He’s charismatic, as always. He turns Hud into a monstrously beautiful narcissist, the sort of person for whom the world is made, a world for the taking with nothing to give back to it. Or so the feeling goes. But this is not Hud’s problem — the problem of what others need. They exist to satisfy his own needs.Naturally, a sad loser like this can come to no good and Hud doesn’t. The film is primarily about loss. Hud’s mother is gone and unmentioned, either dead or otherwise departed. His older brother Norm (Lonnie’s father) we never meet. He’s dead, accidentally killed in a drunken car wreck with Hud at the wheel. Of course Hud is filled with guilt, grief and remorse over this, but he doesn’t know how to show or release it, unless it’s through anger and destructive behaviour toward himself and others, anger and destruction in place of understanding and acceptance. Lonnie’s mother (Norm’s wife) is not around either. We aren’t told what happened to her. In the end Hud will lose just about everyone.“Hud” is the name of the film as well of course, so named to emphasise the self-centredness of the main character. The world of Hud is the only one that nominally interests him, but the world of “Hud” the film is not all about him. In fact, what makes it memorable and brilliant are the characters in it not named Hud.We come to love Homer, Hud’s father. He is principled, decent, old-fashioned and upstanding. Hud denigrates him by calling him pious and preachy, but it’s just another case of the son not understanding the wisdom and decency of the father. Or maybe he does understand and is jealous of such decency.Alma (played by Patricia Neal) is lovely. Her life has been hard. She’s been around the block a time or two. Yet she carries herself with a quiet sort of dignity and grace, qualities Lonnie sees and respects in her. In turn, she shows him maternal affection, trying to steer him toward good and healthy choices.Early on Lonnie idolises Hud, mistaking his cockiness and disregard for others as independence. But Lonnie grows up quickly in the film, and by the end sees Hud as he is — as superficial, craven and cowardly.The cattle ranch has been Homer’s life. The cows and steers are part of his purpose in life. He loves to ride among them. But a crisis occurs in the story when a pair of his cows come down with foot-and-mouth disease, a contagion among cattle. Much of the drama in this crisis centres on uncertainty over their fate.There may be oil on the land but Homer isn’t interested in drilling. What can he do with oil? It’s a nonsense, this viscous liquid, not a living thing he can ride among. Hud argues that it’s money, big money under the land. Homer is stubborn, a ridiculous old fool not to budge and listen. Anyone can see that. But irony being what it is, it’s Hud who’s blind, not Homer — blind to his father’s needs and life. So it goes with Hud, with everyone and everything he touches. He’s clueless.Yes, loss.There is a death. Someone near and dear to Lonnie has died. At the funeral he’s upset and grieving. After the burial the parson comes over to console the lad. He says to Lonnie:“Don’t worry, son. He has gone to a better place.”Lonnie pauses, reflects, replies:“I don’t think so, unless dirt is better than air.”Lonnie is right. A cold, dark, wet hole in the ground is no substitute for the vast and rich beauty of creation.In the end Lonnie walks away from everything — from Hud, Texas, the past, and the hollow, empty promises of religion.

good

監督は確か赤がりの犠牲者。親子間の確執をテーマの地味な映画でポールは卑劣で何とも嫌な男を演じて右に出る者なし。後年の理想の男性とは違う。クールだが嫌な男は渇いた太陽でも。子供には嫌な野郎だと写った。パトリシアニールは美しい。シェーンの少年も出る。伝説的な名画。