A couple of funny-to-me things in Hud relating to Paul Newman's future as a food entrepeneur. In one scene, when Hud drives Alma (Patricia Neal) back from the grocery store, she asks Hud if he wants a Fig Newton. In another scene, Hud sarcastically mentions salad dressing. Newman would later have both of those in his "Newman's Own" line of foods.
Martin Ritt said about “Hud” that “it was intended as a deeply moral film about the American heel-hero Clark Gable used to play for half a film before he got converted. I wanted to carry the character to its logical conclusion. I was shocked when young audiences idolized Hud and wrote letters telling me they hated ‘that stuffed shirt old man.’ I should have sensed that Haight-Ashbury was just around the corner.” The hippie movement (and its ramifications) had little if anything to do with audiences eating up Paul Newman’s heel. It may likely have had everything to do with feelings viewers felt deep inside themselves—that they were more like Hud than any of the others in the story. (We forget that by the time “Hud” was released, we had gone through two very public adultery scandals with Elizabeth Taylor.) The strength of Newman’s performance is that it belies the moral pointer weaving under the strain of moviemakers hoping to remember their central theme as target. Maybe nowhere more than in Texas are there ranchers so bored with the drudgery of their lives and made morally lethargic by the eternal heat that they become tempting cads and catches out of relief. Newman’s good looks and his Cadillac convertible are his entrée into the bedrooms of equally bored housewives whose husbands are out of town, his swaggering insolence momentary blips of excitement. It’s true that barroom brawls out in the sticks were—and perhaps still are—forms of Saturday night entertainment; getting trapped in the parched, empty(headed) vistas of “Hud” (or “Giant”), it’s clear why just about everybody drank and fornicated. (Something Larry McMurtry pretends isn’t as paramount.) Before multiplex cinemas, cable TV, drugs and computers, not much else defeated the dreariness. That’s why the story’s intentions don’t hold up; the environment alone contradicts the prissy morals. Liking enormously Patricia Neal’s Alma, the real pleasure in “Hud” is of course Newman. To embittered Douglas, deWilde says, “Why pick on Hud? Nearly everybody around town is like him.” But there’s no one like him in the movie—and one look at the famous Phototeque glossy which became a best selling poster confirms it. He’s emancipating—invigorating, incorrigible, carnal as hell—and if we’re supposed to somehow react moralistically, it would be false to our not-so-private feelings of envy, lust, even cheerful idolatry.
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!
Apologies, but breaking up the review in smaller paragraphs helps me take in the content better.
Lots of food for thought on Hud's community and surroundings, as well as the things Martin Ritt believed the film portended.
Once more, Ralph's post:
Martin Ritt said about “Hud” that “it was intended as a deeply moral film about the American heel-hero Clark Gable used to play for half a film before he got converted. I wanted to carry the character to its logical conclusion. I was shocked when young audiences idolized Hud and wrote letters telling me they hated ‘that stuffed shirt old man.’ I should have sensed that Haight-Ashbury was just around the corner.” The hippie movement (and its ramifications) had little if anything to do with audiences eating up Paul Newman’s heel. It may likely have had everything to do with feelings viewers felt deep inside themselves—that they were more like Hud than any of the others in the story. (We forget that by the time “Hud” was released, we had gone through two very public adultery scandals with Elizabeth Taylor.)
The strength of Newman’s performance is that it belies the moral pointer weaving under the strain of moviemakers hoping to remember their central theme as target. Maybe nowhere more than in Texas are there ranchers so bored with the drudgery of their lives and made morally lethargic by the eternal heat that they become tempting cads and catches out of relief. Newman’s good looks and his Cadillac convertible are his entrée into the bedrooms of equally bored housewives whose husbands are out of town, his swaggering insolence momentary blips of excitement.
It’s true that barroom brawls out in the sticks were—and perhaps still are—forms of Saturday night entertainment; getting trapped in the parched, empty(headed) vistas of “Hud” (or “Giant”), it’s clear why just about everybody drank and fornicated. (Something Larry McMurtry pretends isn’t as paramount.) Before multiplex cinemas, cable TV, drugs and computers, not much else defeated the dreariness. That’s why the story’s intentions don’t hold up; the environment alone contradicts the prissy morals. Liking enormously Patricia Neal’s Alma, the real pleasure in “Hud” is of course Newman. To embittered Douglas, deWilde says, “Why pick on Hud? Nearly everybody around town is like him.” But there’s no one like him in the movie—and one look at the famous Phototeque glossy which became a best selling poster confirms it. He’s emancipating—invigorating, incorrigible, carnal as hell—and if we’re supposed to somehow react moralistically, it would be false to our not-so-private feelings of envy, lust, even cheerful idolatry.
Those two articles Jim posted were great. I think I understand more about the movie with this thread. Seems like the writers and director wanted Hud to totally be the bad guy, but the audience found Newman too attractive and too charismatic to hate. If I remember correctly, once in a while we got a tiny, very tiny glimmer of a bit of decency in his character which made him not totally reprehensible.
Really? Doesn't its proto-Morricone vibe pull you right in along with the beautifully-photographed black and white abyss courtesy of cinematographer James Wong Howe? (who shot another of my favorites, 1957's Sweet Smell of Success, also scored by Elmer)
Speaking of Hud, Patricia Neal (Oh, how I adore her), and Brandon de Wilde, I was watching In Harm's Way recently and it's a veritable Hud reunion of the two actors, who have scenes together. Nice.
I would never have thought the Hud main title was by Elmer Bernstein. I played it for Mrs. Phelps and asked her what came to mind. She replied "Spaghetti Western, Mexico, the West, folk music."
Jim, now that you have pointed it out, there is a bit of a Morricone vibe in the main title. I adore Bernstein, and this is a score that fit the movie perfectly, but it didn't reach out to my ears enough to want to buy it.
Before multiplex cinemas, cable TV, drugs and computers, not much else defeated the dreariness. That’s why the story’s intentions don’t hold up; the environment alone contradicts the prissy morals. Liking enormously Patricia Neal’s Alma, the real pleasure in “Hud” is of course Newman. To embittered Douglas, deWilde says, “Why pick on Hud? Nearly everybody around town is like him.” But there’s no one like him in the movie—and one look at the famous Phototeque glossy which became a best selling poster confirms it. He’s emancipating—invigorating, incorrigible, carnal as hell—and if we’re supposed to somehow react moralistically, it would be false to our not-so-private feelings of envy, lust, even cheerful idolatry.
He is compelling, maybe because Newman lends him his charisma, just as he does all that he plays.
But the notion that the SW States are a hotbed of suppressed passion is only half the story (and maybe a little unkind to those who live there...). It's truer to say that big open desert places tend to create POLARISED people, at the extremes. You have the austere moral desert prophet or the fierce tribesman, the square moral frontiersman and the lawless maverick. Sometimes those desert opposites war within the same person, like Qumran apocalyptics or something. Hud fights stuff within himself as surely as his old patriarchal critic does. They each fight their own shadow. Maybe in the likes of Tennessee Williams, there are whole communities that are bad and conformist, against one colourful rebel who lives life fearlessly. See Newman's other role in 'Sweet Bird of Youth'. Isn't that the same guy (in the play version), in different circumstances minus the Texas?
As has been discussed on another thread, it's no surprise that the villain is attractive. They often get great music too. I haven't read Horseman Pass By, which looks compelling.
Those two articles Jim posted were great. I think I understand more about the movie with this thread. Seems like the writers and director wanted Hud to totally be the bad guy, but the audience found Newman too attractive and too charismatic to hate. If I remember correctly, once in a while we got a tiny, very tiny glimmer of a bit of decency in his character which made him not totally reprehensible.
Yes, but it's the old, uncool, and aptly named Homer who has the film's most prescient line:
"Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire."
In one of my favorite, oft-returned-to, books, “Studies in Classic American Literature”, D. H. Lawrence wrote, “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”
...and he went on:
“The true American, who writhes and writhes like a snake that is long in sloughing.
Sometimes snakes can't slough. They can't burst their old skin. Then they go sick and die inside the old skin, and nobody ever sees the new pattern.
It needs a real desperate recklessness to burst your old skin at last. You simply don't care what happens to you, if you rip yourself in two, so long as you do get out.
It also needs a real belief in the new skin. Otherwise you are likely never to make the effort. Then you gradually sicken and go rotten and die in the old skin.”
As a kid of 10 I responded to the sexually masculine charisma of Hud -- probably identifying with the deWilde character who spends much of the film in rapt adoration of Hud. I now experience the character, Hud, as superbly portrayed by Paul Newman, as one of those writhing, sickened, dying snakes. As I get older the film seems almost like a modern horror tale. The monster inside...etc.
D. H. Lawrence wrote, “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”
I was searching for that quote recently, but I couldn't remember its exact wording, or who said it. I thought it might be WH Auden or old TS.
“The true American, who writhes and writhes like a snake that is long in sloughing.....
It needs a real desperate recklessness to burst your old skin at last. You simply don't care what happens to you, if you rip yourself in two, so long as you do get out...
It also needs a real belief in the new skin. Otherwise you are likely never to make the effort. Then you gradually sicken and go rotten and die in the old skin.”
He's praising a certain kind of pioneering attitude there. He could as easily be attacking the old Europe from whence came the immigrants. It's only a few centuries after all.
As a kid of 10 I responded to the sexually masculine charisma of Hud -- probably identifying with the deWilde character who spends much of the film in rapt adoration of Hud. I now experience the character, Hud, as superbly portrayed by Paul Newman, as one of those writhing, sickened, dying snakes. As I get older the film seems almost like a modern horror tale. The monster inside...etc.
It's funny, I wouldn't have really appreciated Hud at 10. He has all the energy and imagination to break out, but he doesn't. Nor does the old man, who has the grit, but constrained by traditions and ethics. It's Brutus and Antony really.
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.
John, the snake analogy was brilliant. I must watch HUD again with my newly gained insight.
Luckily, HUD was recently reissued (after having been oop for several years) on a bare-bones widescreen edition DVD--for those of us who still purchase such things--which goes for $4.99 on Amazon.
