What always distinguished and definitively separated Mr. Newman from his fellow stars such as Messrs. McQueen & Redford is he was an ACTOR first and everything else afterwards.
Mind you, he wasn’t averse to utilizing his vaunted charisma but that was never in the forefront of what he did and why he chose the challenging parts he did (unlike those other two who never generally worked with anyone other than those they were comfortable with and, in the latter’s case, assiduously refused to accept roles that showed him in a specifically ‘unlikeable’ light – case in point, he cowardly turned down “The Verdict” precisely because of this rationalization while Mr. Newman took it on as one of his most admirable late-career outings).
And he allied himself in a handful of still unforgettable films with the director who best understood and could harness his uniqueness inna way no one else has ever come close to equaling, let alone surpassing.
I saw HUD, in the summer of 1963, on a double bill with DONOVAN'S REEF. Love both of them. Those were the days!
Those are two disparate movies! What a "tonal shift" of a double feature that was! I wonder which film was the first shown on the bill. PhillySon rarely posts anymore, so do any other Boomers recall if HUD and DONOVAN'S REEF were shown at your Anytown, USA cinema? Joan? Howard L? Chris Kinsinger? Ray Faiola? Ron Pulliam?
I can still recall to this day dialing the hometown theatre for "This a recording..." and "...now showing, Hud." I must have dialed for weeks waiting to hear a different movie, that's how ingrained "Hud" is in the mind's ear. I was all of seven. My younger brother said "Hood" was playing.
PS Just dialed. The place is still there and still the same number. Oh my it's been AGES.
Here's a little something I wrote a few years ago about Larry McMurtry's novel in comparison to the film -
I had assumed that most of the plot and the witty, colloquial dialogue from the film would be found within the book. Instead, I was fascinated to learn that the book bears little resemblance to the film at all. Whereas Hud is the main character of the film, he’s a mere side character in the book, which is written first person from the point of view of Lonnie Bannon - Hud’s nephew in the film, cousin by marriage in the book.
And since Lon is just a boy, much of the film’s plot - the destruction of the Bannon cattle due to foot & mouth disease, the conflict between Hud and Lon’s grandfather - is seen from a distance in the book.
Instead, the book is an intimate look at Lon’s thoughts and feelings as his world crumbles around him.
This confirms a suspicion I've held having not read the novel, that the source material for the film was more of a coming-of-age story and the film had shifted the focus toward his rebellious uncle. And yet that made the film no less true. Little wonder that an adolescent would be attracted to another adolescent fully grown. Until the kid's eyes are opened and he finally sees Hud is just that and how it has led to self-destruction. In that moment the younger had overtaken the older, something Hud was not able to accomplish with his father.
From the Ravetch and Frank, Jr. interview linked previously:
BAER: Well, Hud was certainly a unique picture in many ways, but, most significantly, it dared to portray a central character who was a "pure bastard"—and who remained totally unredeemed and unrepentant at the end of the picture.
RAVETCH: Yes, we sensed a change in American society back then. We felt that the country was gradually moving into a kind of self-absorption, and indulgence, and greed—which, of course, fully blossomed in the 'eighties and the 'nineties. So we made Hud a greedy, self-absorbed man, who ruthlessly strives for things, and gains a lot materially, but really loses everything that's important. But he doesn't care. He's still unrepentant.
This is the crux of the character IMHO. All material, nothing spiritual i.e. something to believe in; a higher sense of purpose. Not necessarily amoral but certainly immoral. Father and son as victims of conditioning and yet was not the father more noble-minded in the way he lived his life?
What I love about Hud is its "1963-ness"; It's the cusp of a new era. I don't believe there was another protagonist--at least in American films--who was so transparently odious (who wasn't a politician.)
...pull you right in along with the beautifully-photographed black and white abyss courtesy of cinematographer James Wong Howe?...
I'm taking and parsing these phrases because damn you have tapped into something that I relate to in the worst way. This film does something with every viewing and it's the same something I get from Route 66 and The Fugitive especially. I am talking about the era I lived through as a youngster and how the b&w cinematography on location has either distorted or enhanced the way my mind's eye sees the era today in memory whether by reflex or choice. The same effect comes to mind when I think of the Radio Free Europe commercials. Touchstones all. These things taken altogether become an overwhelming "truth" for me. I can't shake it. And there is an aural equivalent. Happens every time I hear Mancini's Moon River, for one.
I'm taking and parsing these phrases because damn you have tapped into something that I relate to in the worst way. This film does something with every viewing and it's the same something I get from Route 66 and The Fugitive especially. I am talking about the era I lived through as a youngster and how the b&w cinematography on location has either distorted or enhanced the way my mind's eye sees the era today in memory whether by reflex or choice. The same effect comes to mind when I think of the Radio Free Europe commercials. Touchstones all. These things taken altogether become an overwhelming "truth" for me. I can't shake it. And there is an aural equivalent. Happens every time I hear Mancini's Moon River, for one.
I suppose Andy Griffith in "A Face in the Crowd" comes close to being the most grotesque protagonist in American films circa 1955-1965, but at least his character has the "excuse" of being drunk on booze, fame, and power; Newman's Hud has none of those excuses, which of course makes him all the more despicable.
Interesting that you mention touchstones by choice and things that set off memories or perceptions of what the era was, because I do this even though I wasn't there. Whenever I hear things like "The Windmills of Your Mind"--the Noel Harrison one--or "California Dreamin'", or "Washington Square", or "Telstar", or the string break in "Then He Kissed Me"--and that's just a handful of the songs that do this--those and a thousand other songs, films, TV shows, newsreel images, and even scents all pull me into the time period as it must have "felt like."
I find this all the more interesting because you were there and unless I'm misunderstanding you, that is how you are once again transported to that time of b&w film, crumbling magazine paper (oh, the staleness of the past), and the last vestiges of a pre-counterculture world. We all bring our own baggage to how we interpret films, novels, and songs, but those individual interpretations always contain at least a kernel of universal "truth"--what a worthless word that has become--to which any perceptive viewer can relate.
I know the next time I watch HUD, I'll have to revise and add to all of these opinions! Such is its ability to make one think and reflect.
"Telstar." Whoa. Add "The In Crowd" and "Take Five." Definitive instrumentals for that b&w world. And the Drifters' "On Broadway" per RFE commercial seals the deal.
Interesting that you mention touchstones by choice and things that set off memories or perceptions of what the era was, because I do this even though I wasn't there.
That's something that I can wholly relate to and yet it's for my parent's time, the WWII era. So much big band music has at times made me feel "nostalgic" for an era I did not inhabit, per se. It just feels that way and the music and certain films "pull me into the time period as it must have 'felt like.'"
Yeah you've hit it all right. Last year I rewatched Manhattan. This viewing seized me much more vs. the original theatrical viewing for something related to what we're expressing. Abstract yet real. And don't get me wrong I loved the movie when it came out. Woody was really onto something with the use of b&w and now it feels like I was part of a target audience.
Hud. 1963. The ultimate b&w experience of that year would be the 4 days in November. Talk about an indefinable but indelible zeitgeist...
That's something that I can wholly relate to and yet it's for my parent's time, the WWII era. So much big band music has at times made me feel "nostalgic" for an era I did not inhabit, per se. It just feels that way and the music and certain films "pull me into the time period as it must have 'felt like.'"
Why do I get the impression it's just you and I in this thread? I'm going to digress just a bit, but HUD is what led me to this detour.
Occasionally, I'll read, watch, or hear something that "takes me back" to the immediate post-WWII era (1945-50), which is another brief window I obsess over often. While I "connect" to the 1945-50 and 1960-63 eras, I have never been able to latch on to the 1950s for whatever reason.
As you may or may not recall, I am a longtime fan of the "Steve Canyon" comic strip. In the Steve Canyon Magazine letter column, several comic and literary luminaries wrote in to wish the publication luck. Among those was Harlan Ellison. In his letter he recounted those frigid winter mornings spent in wait for the daily newspaper to arrive so that he could once again partake in the "funnies", Steve Canyon in particular.
Anyway, Ellison's description "took me" to the place he described, and as our man Hemingway often said, a great writer makes the reader feel as if the story happened to them. Ellison accomplished this. I haven't read anything else by him but if Ellison's work is as half as vivid and atmospheric as a damned fan letter, then he must be among the great writers.
