IT SEEMS IN THIS DAY AND AGE OF NONSENSE MOVIES, THE ENLIGHTENED OFTEN HAVE TO SCOUR THE ARCHIVES TO FIND CREATIVE ENTERTAINMENT.
DESPITE PAUL NEWMAN’S CONTEMPORARY ‘LIBERAL’ MINDLESSNESS ‘HUD’ REMINDS US THAT HE WAS A GOOD ACTOR ONCE.
HE PLAYS HUD BANNON, REBELLIOUS SON OF A BIG TEXAS RANCHER.
HUD AND HIS FATHER (MELVYN DOUGLAS) LOCK HORNS FREQENTLY AS THEIR PERSONALITIES AND MORALITY ARE FAR FROM COMPLIMENTARY.
HUD IS BASICLY A SELF SERVING, EGOTISTICAL OVERAGE BRAT THAT SEES THE WORLD AS HIS PERSONAL PLAYGROUND DESIGNED TO BENEFIT HIM AND HIM ALONE.
THE PATRIARCH FATHER IS FROM THE OLD SCHOOL, AND IS THE CONSIENCE OF THE FILM. THE DAD IS A STAND UP, DO THE RIGHT THING TYPE THAT USE TO BE MORE THE RULE IN PEOPLE RATHER THAN THE EXECPTION AS IT IS TODAY.
A ‘LOOKING FOR A ROLE MODEL’ NEPHEW IS THROWN INTO THE MIX (BRANDON DEWILDE) OF ‘SHANE’ FAME, AND THIS KID BECOMES THE CATALYST FOR EMOTIONAL SHOWDOWNS BETWEEN THE ROGUE AND THE GRANDPA.

ALL PARTS ARE PLAYED WELL AND IT IS A SHAME DEWILDE WAS KILLED SHORTLY AFTER THIS MOVIE CAME OUT. HE PROVES TO BE A TALENTED ACTOR WHO OBVIOUSLY HAD PROMISE IN THIS ARENA.

‘HUD’ IS A MORALITY PLAY BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE RIGHT AND VARIOUS SHADES OF GRAY REALITY.

IF YOU CAN GET PAST NEWMANS FLIMSY POLITICS AND JUST WATCH THIS ONE FOR WHAT IT IS, YOU WILL LEARN SOMETHING AND BE ENTERTAINED IN THE BARGAIN.

Just can’t go along with all the rave reviewers of this story, most of whom spell out its unpleasant details at great length. Everything about it may be as good and marvellous as they say, but in the end it’s an intensely depressing, misery-making, simply feel-bad kind of film. Acting, writing, shooting are all excellent: but the characters and the theme are either deeply unhappy or repellent. There was an aura of corrosive cynicism and disillusion about many movies of this era, starting perhaps with Look Back in Anger, and the British school of kitchen sink, moving West with a variety of American productions, including this one, of course. The obverse of this trend was the birth of Rock and Roll, which took place at about the same time. Perhaps both trends had the rejection of parental values in common, but, frankly, I prefer the Elvis sneer to Hud Bannon’s when it comes to offending the wrinkly and righteous. There is positively nothing appealing to me about Hud’s personality: he’s nothing but a good-looking, sulky, selfish, ill-mannered jerk. Every episode presented, the opening scene, the pointless brawls, the greased pig contest, the ugly rape attempt, the cattle slaughter, the old man’s death-rattle, just leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

There are two things that stop “Hud” from being a truly great movie: Newman’s very good but not quite good enough performance, and an often strong but fatally flawed script.

First the script, which by the way adapts a Larry McMurtry novel. For me, the movie slipped away in the big confrontation scene between Hud and his father after Hud has brought his nephew home drunk. It violates the most basic rule of good writing, especially film and theater writing: Show it, don’t tell it. That’s a shame, because there’s a lot wonderful about this film, but in that jaw-droppingly contrived passage of dialogue, where the writer just steps into the film and sticks a tiresome detailing of the film’s theme and (wince) moral into his poor character’s mouths, all the grit, sweat and drama drain right out of the movie. (And this is the worst but not the last such moment.) It’s like the movie in its first hour had launched itself daringly into the ’60s…and then suddenly collapsed back into ’30s Warners melodrama. Too bad.

And then there’s Newman. He’s very good, for sure, and the fact that his performance doesn’t quite get there may finally be mostly matters of script and direction. But in fact he’s not as good as either Melvyn Douglas, as Hud’s old-school father, or, especially, Patricia Neal, as the hard-bitten cook and housekeeper warily weighing Hud’s charms. Newman doesn’t quite get inside Hud’s skin–his performance is a bit too from the outside in. And he doesn’t finally show us enough of what makes the character tick, or make him more than a selfish, cynical (if charming) cypher.

Yes, there’s a lot good here: the stark B&W cinematography that uses the wide screen so well; the remarkable above-noted performances; the prescient story that contrasts not only an old and new West but an old and new American capitalism. (Am I the only one who saw a lot of George W. Bush in Hud?)

But for me “Hud”‘s flaws, especially in the script, ultimately do it in.