It has been said that Paul Newman was a character actor trapped in the body of a movie star. He had
matinee idol good looks but was unafraid to tackle challenging roles in films
like The Hustler (1961), Slap Shot (1977), and Road to Perdition (2002), but perhaps
his riskiest role was that of the titular character in Hud (1963). Based on Larry McMurtry’s 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By, it depicts the
conflict between an aging cattle rancher and his arrogant son with the nephew
torn between his admiration for the former and his fascination with the latter.
The film is a revisionist western, depicting a way of life that was becoming
increasingly marginalized. Hud was a
critical and commercial success while also being nominated for seven Academy
Awards and winning three of them. It is also one of Newman’s signature roles
and is a powerful example of his fearlessness as an actor.
The opening credits play over
desolate Texan landscapes, captured in absolutely stunning, atmospheric quality
by cinematographer James Wong Howe, with
a lone vehicle driving through while Elmer Bernstein’s somber, subdued score
plays over the soundtrack. We meet Lonnie Bannon (Brandon deWilde), a young man
who is looking for his uncle Hud (Newman) early in the morning, which may
explain why the small town he’s walking through looks so deserted. He’s been
enlisted by his grandfather Homer (Melvyn Douglas) to find Hud and bring him
back home. Lonnie finds Hud at a married woman’s house just as her husband
returns. The quick-thinking Hud covers his own ass by telling the angry man
that it was Lonnie stepping out with his wife and quickly gets his nephew out of
there. This scene is a fitting introduction to Hud as it tells us all we need
to know about him – a lazy troublemaker not above lying to save his own skin.
Hud and Lonnie make it back
to the ranch and Homer tells them that one of his cows is dead and he doesn’t
know why. Homer wants to bring in the state veterinarian to check it out while
Hud doesn’t want any government people on their property meddling in their
affairs. The vet eventually shows up and tells Homer that he’s got a potential
outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Later, Hud tells his father to sell all of
the potentially infected cattle and make some quick money but Homer is a
principled man and refuses. He knows that would be illegal and morally wrong. Hud
doesn’t see it that way as says early on, “I always say the law was meant to be
interpreted in a lenient manner. And that’s what I try to do. Sometimes I lean
to one side of it, sometimes I lean to the other.”
Homer doesn’t approve of
Hud’s lifestyle and in turn he believes that his father’s ways are outdated.
They have spent many years in conflict with one another as evident from the
tangible tension between them. The dilemma that the Bannons face is that if the
cattle are infected they will have to all be destroyed and that will mean the
end of the ranch because the family is broke. This casts an ominous cloud over
everyone and one can’t help but feel the impending doom.
Despite all the grief Hud
gives Lonnie, the young man looks up to his uncle and even has aspirations of
being like him as evident early on when he tags along on one of Hud’s nights on
the town. They have an interesting conversation where Hud tells him about the
summer where he and Lonnie’s father raised hell and chased girls. Lonnie tells
Hud that he’d like to go that route but when the latter invites the former to
pick up women Lonnie demurs, which is the first indication that the young man
doesn’t really want to be like Hud.
Paul Newman turns in another
effortless performance as the ultimate heel. Initially, he portrays Hud as a
charming rogue that specializes in married women but as the film progresses the
actor reveals his character’s more troubling aspects, like his dishonest ideas
for the ranch and his increasingly aggressive advances towards Alma (Patricia Neal), the Bannon’s housekeeper. Newman also shows a keen understanding of his
character in the way he carries himself in a given scene. It is fascinating to
watch how he interacts with objects, incorporating them into the moment and
making it look natural. The actor knows how to immerse himself in a character,
adopting specific mannerisms and ways of speaking. He’s also not afraid to go
to dark places with Hud, especially when it comes to his relationship with
Alma. Their flirting comes to an ugly conclusion that changes things between
them forever. I think Homer sums Hud up best when he tells him, “You don’t
value nothing. You don’t respect nothing. You keep no check on your appetites
at all. You live just for yourself and that makes you not fit to live with.” Melvyn
Douglas delivers this speech masterfully and Newman, ever the gracious actor,
stands there and takes it, glowering at him in simmering anger.
Brandon deWilde plays a young
man coming of age and finding himself torn between Hud and his grandfather. The
actor does a nice job of conveying the conflict that resides in Lonnie. He
instills his character with the youthful idealism of a young man who hasn’t
many life experiences under his belt but gets more than his share during the
course of the film. Lonnie goes from someone who follows others to someone that
figures out who he is in the world. DeWilde has the fresh-faced looks of youthful
innocence and this is contrasted with intelligent eyes that suggest someone who
thinks about things.
Melvyn Douglas is excellent
as the aging patriarch. He’s an old school straight shooter from a bygone era.
He remembers the past and its importance as he tells Lonnie about two of his
oldest cattle: “I just keep ‘em for old time’s sake. Keep ‘em to remind me how
things was. Everything we had came from their hides: our furniture, our ropes,
our clothes, our hats.” He’s a tough old guy but Douglas also hints at a
physical fragility, which is juxtaposed with Newman’s vitality. There is a nice
scene between Homer and Lonnie when they go to the movies and the tired old man
comes to life when the audience sings along to “My Darling Clementine.”
Patricia Neal plays Alma, the
housekeeper looking after the Bannon men, and deflects Hud’s occasional
flirtations as they trade good-natured verbal barbs. Newman and Neal play well
off each other in their scenes together and have excellent chemistry. He is all
smarmy smirks and roguish charm while she conveys an earthy sexiness mixed with
a world-weariness of someone who’s lived a good chunk of life and not all of it
good.
The sexual tension between
Alma and Hud gradually increases as their verbal sparring scenes crackle with
fantastic dialogue like when he says of her ex-husband, “Man like that sounds
no better than a heel,” to which she replies, “Aren’t ya all?” He says, “Honey,
don’t go shooting all the dogs ‘cause one of them’s got fleas.” Both actors
deliver this dialogue so well and so naturally, conveying a subtext of Alma’s
attraction to Hud but knowing that it would be dangerous to act on it for
several reasons.
The husband and wife
screenwriting team of Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. first worked with
director Martin Ritt on The Long Hot
Summer (1958), starring Paul Newman, and went on to collaborate with the
director over eight films, including Hud.
Ravetch found Larry McMurtry’s novel Horseman,
Pass By in a bookstore, read it and enjoyed it so much he asked Frank to
read it. They had enjoyed working with Newman and Ritt and wanted to do it
again. Ravetch and Frank brought the novel to Ritt’s attention as a possible
film. The director wanted to work with Newman again but didn’t think that there
was a part for him so the writers expanded the secondary character of Hud and
made him central to the story. By doing this, Ravetch and Frank were able to
examine “the greed and materialism that was beginning to take over America.”
Initially, Paramount Studios
balked at this rather dark material and felt that it wasn’t commercial enough.
Ravetch recalled that when executives read the script, “They paled. One of them
said, ‘When does he get nice?’ I said, ‘Never.’” It was this unapologetically
cruel character that drew Newman and Ritt to the project. In adapting
McMurtry’s novel, Ravetch and Frank made several significant changes. Hud
became Homer’s son rather than stepson as in the source material. In the book,
the Bannon’s cook is a black woman named Halmea and in the film she is played
by a white actress and renamed Alma.
Martin Rackin, head of Paramount Studios, did not like the film’s ending and asked
Ritt to change it. The director loved and refused to change it. Newman stood by
his director because he also loved the ending. Before Rackin could suggest an
alternate ending, audience reaction and positive critical notices convinced the
studio that Hud would be a commercial
success.
The demise of Homer’s cattle
ranch is a symbol of the end of a certain way of life depicted in traditional
westerns. He represents the past and unfortunately Hud represents the future –
cold-hearted business sense. Lonnie represents a glimmer of hope as he respects
the past but looks ahead to a different way of life. Hud is a moving and powerful revisionist western about a family in
decline with two of its members fighting for control – one who is older and
wiser and the other younger and more savvy. It’s old school versus new school
with Lonnie caught in the middle. By the end of the film he has to make some
tough choices and grow up.
SOURCES
Baer, William. “Hud: A Conversation with Irving Ravetch
and Harriet Frank, Jr.” Mainly the 1950s. Spring 2003.
Levy, Shawn. Paul Newman: A Life. Three Rivers Press.
2009.
Miller, Gabriel. The Films of Martin Ritt: Fanfare for the
Common Man. University Press of Mississippi. 2000.
