Simply A Masterpiece

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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.

Nominated for seven Oscars (inexplicably though not for Best Picture, when it was in a different league to the films nominated from personal opinion) and deservedly winning three (cinematography and Best Supporting Actor being especially deserving), 'Hud' is still over fifty years later regarded in high esteem and no wonder.'Hud' is powerhouse stuff, a very bold film thematically back in 1963 and has lost none of its chills, power or poignancy fifty four years later. 'Hud' still looks world-class technically, while atmospherically lit and handsomely mounted the cinematography win is one of the category's most richly deserved, can't think of any other film from that year that had cinematography so rich in atmosphere and beauty or that provoked so many stark chills and melancholic emotion.Elmer Bernstein's score is restrained but also very haunting, while the script is sardonic and thoughtful with some of Homer's lines unforgettable in a life-affirming sense. The story is tightly paced and makes the most of seemingly black and white but actually richly and complexly drawn characters. The telling of it pulls no punches and it has none of its harrowing and poignant emotional power.Paul Newman's performance in 'Hud' is one of his finest. It is gut-wrenching to see one of the most handsome and coolest actors in film history play a character with so few redeeming qualities and do it so powerfully. Melvyn Douglas embodies wisdom and nobility, while Patricia Neal is touching and Brandon De Wilde more than holds his own in an "observing the action" sort of role.All in all, a powerhouse film in every sense. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Two classic films based on the writing of Larry McMurtry have immortalized a certain Texas small town state-of-mind, "Hud" and "The Last Picture Show." McMurtry has been fantastically lucky with Hollywood, artistically and financially, as lucky as any American writer ever - see also the wonderful "Lonesome Dove" and his beautiful co-scripting of "Brokeback Mountain." "Hud" is superb. The acting, the photography, the epic three-generational family conflict - all excellent. (I can't think off-hand of many pictures that delve into the complexities of three generations of a family; "The Godfather" trilogy kind of explores that territory, although the third generation has no actual contact with the first.)This film caps off the first great phase of Paul Newman's career. He did some of his best work from 1956 to '63 including "Somebody Up There Likes Me," "Sweet Bird of Youth," "The Long, Hot Summer," "The Left-Handed Gun" (a really interesting portrayal of Billy the Kid), and "The Hustler." After "Hud" he had a three-year rough patch that included "The Outrage," "Lady L." and "Torn Curtain" before storming back into superstardom with "Harper" and "Cool Hand Luke" in 1966 and '67 and "Butch Cassidy" in '69. Patricia Neal is perfect here: tough, sweet, and funny, a poker-playing mama with a lot of passion bubbling under the surface. Her role in "Hud" is quite small really (most of her screen time is in the first hour) but we feel her presence, and are thinking about her, from her first appearance. (Neal had difficult and tragic first half of the '60s - one of her children died of measles (1962), another was seriously injured by a New York taxicab (1960), and, in 1965, post-"Hud," she herself suffered a serious stroke. Neal apparently told Newman about the measles death early in the filming of "Hud"; he was so deep into his character he just said "Tough" and ambled away.) The director and screenwriters of "Hud" deserve a shout-out and I am happy to supply it here: Martin Ritt (director) and the writing team of Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, husband-and-wife. Those three folks had previously worked with Newman on "The Long, Hot Summer" (based on William Faulkner's "The Hamlet"). Some of my favorite lines and images: "Far as I can get on a bus ticket" delivered with a cool go-to-hell glance. The beautiful moment when Homer belts out "My Darling Clementine" in the movie theater (by the way, that's basically the same theater as in "The Last Picture Show"). The endless skies. The sound of the wind. "We dosey-doed and chased a lot of girlish butt around that summer." "I was sitting way on the other side of the room and I got a little encouraged." The Cadillac bouncing on those country roads and railroad tracks - suspensions were none too robust in those days. The way Alma says "Somebody in this car has been wearing Chanel Number Fiiiiiive...." Her zapping with a towel of a horsefly (the moment was unscripted). The use of music (guitars, a jukebox, a transistor radio, a car radio - spare and totally right). The twisting contest. The lemonade scene. "I'll stay home. I don't like pigs." The depiction of the prairie and the sky as an Impressionist painting by Ritt and cinematographer James Wong Howe (Howe considered his work here the best of his long career, which dated to the silent era). The paperback book rack in the drugstore and the pointed commentary from the proprietor about a sex scene in "From Here to Eternity." (The paperback book rack in the corner drugstore was a significant part of American culture for decades, in a thousand cities and towns; it's gone now and mostly forgotten.)My favorite Melvyn Douglas moment in the film is when he's taking a last look at his longhorns. It's a small miracle of acting - the camera is a good 25 feet away but we feel every bit of Homer's grief. Speaking of James Wong Howe - there's a long audio interview with him on YouTube and there's an excellent book about him titled "James Wong Howe: The Camera Eye."One of the interesting themes of the film is its earthiness about sex. Not just Hud's supercharged/decadent sex life but Alma's casualness about Lonnie's girlie magazine, Homer's frank appraisal of the growing boy, the provocative let's-party look delivered to Lonnie in the diner, the twist contest where very young kids get on out there - totally unembarrassed - and shake their booties under the fond gaze of half the town, the "From Here to Eternity" moment in the store.I have a quibble with an aspect of the script. Homer's a good man and Hud's a bad man, quite obviously, but the fact is, Hud makes a valid and defensible point about the family's future. Those fields probably hold a lot of oil and Hud knows it and wants it. Homer's prejudice against getting rich is not adequately explained. What we need is a scene where Homer and Lonnie have an encounter with some nouveau-riche oil-crazy goofballs who are drinking and partying too gosh-darn hard (with Hud amongst them); Homer sees the corruption that wealth can bring and makes sure Lonnie sees it too.

For a 1963 neo-western to cast such a critical eye at its subject matter is shocking, and parts of this bleak movie are shocking even by modern standards. "Hud" tells the story of a ranch boy (Brandon DeWilde) who idolizes his uncle Hud (Paul Newman). The movie demonstrates Hud's unsuitability as a role model through increasingly extreme examples of his callous behavior. Hud's personal decline is mirrored by the potential collapse of the family ranch due to a disease among the cattle. Hud is ready to flaunt the health authorities and sell the sick cattle to unwitting buyers, and his disagreement with his father over the issue culminates in a brutal and heart-wrenching sequence. The movie tolerates no cheap sentiment, and derides even the kindly-meant words of a funeral preacher as false comfort in a cruel world. Patricia Neal deservedly took home an Oscar for her role as Alma, a savvy housekeeper who is a foil to Hud and object of fascination to DeWilde's character.