Rent Hud (1963)

One of Newman's best - Hud review by PT

Paul Newman really shines as the totally selfish, hard drinking womanising Hud. A man with no morals, no coscience, the total opposite of his father, who is honest, descent and always does the right thing. Melvyn Douglas is brilliant in the father role, well worthy of the Oscar he won for the effort. Brandon de Wilde, Hud's nephew , idolises Hud, thinking he's the man he wants to be. Patricia Neil also gives a great performance as the hired help at the ranch.

The film looks at right and wrong, through Hud's father and Hud respectively. Will Hud see the light, will his nephew follow in his footsteps? A fantastic western.

engaging & brilliant study of a charming sociopath against a back drop of Midwest cattle farming - Hud review by tm

this scrupulous and subtle observation of family life in a Midwest cattle ranch is told with great skill and a tight script. it is delivered by an ensemble cast which never disappoints. the film is a painful joy to watch, from start to finish, even if the subject matter is harsh and so human.

Newman is electric and utterly believable while Patricia Neal lends a sad and evocative charm as the gentle but hopeful lost woman.

Melvyn Douglas realises the obscure role of the father perfectly, as someone who is at once wise and fair but possibly as much to blame for the consequences he himself despises.

Branden De Wilde plays his role as the cypher/ soft core of the film just right.

Texan Elegy. - Hud review by Steve

From the period when Paul Newman emerged from the shadow of Marlon Brando and the myth cast by James Dean's death.  Melvyn Douglas plays a patriarch, an old school cattleman who lives by a rigid moral code which conflicts with his unprincipled son-Newman as Hud- who is worshipped by Douglas' naive, orphaned grandchild (Brandon de Wilde).. 

Hud isn't so much an anti-hero as an irredeemably contemptuous villain with a charming, attractive façade. In the era of the sixties counterculture He was taken as a role model for the way he stood up to and contested the rules of his his father. They admired his individualism, however corrupt.

Patricia Neal is sympathetic as the sassy housekeeper with a past, who occasionally enters the crosshairs of Hud's licentious gaze. There is a very elegant score from Elmer Bernstein. But the triumph of the film is James Wong Howe's photography in Panavision, dominated by the epic, white, Texan skies.  

Hud is a rapacious capitalist who intends to flatten his father's ranch and produce oil. It is a landscape where sickness is endemic, and the future uncertain. This is an elegiac lament to the passing of the old west, But it is political too; the old men have let us down. It's time their institutions and conventions were challenged.