
“Not Brando in Streetcar, not Dean in Rebel, not Clift in Place in the Sun , it was Newman in Hud who redefined the American cinema protagonist. It’s the first time a bad guy has been presented without excuse or remorse. He has no apology or change of heart. And you can’t take your eyes off him. You think he’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen.” Paul Schrader
In this landmark modern western adapted from Larry McMurtry’s first novel, Brandon de Wile — the kid from Shane — gets an unsentimental education for worshipping the wrong hero: his uncle, Paul Newman’s eponymous heel. More than any of his peers, the young Newman was willing to alienate our affections. In The Hustler and Hud he wasn’t really misunderstood so much as misjudged. He was venal, callous and craven. His looks were his trump card; he was a man women hated to love but couldn’t resist. Even in these boorish, brazen bastards he finds shards of innocence. “My mama loved me but then she died,” Hud Bannon says, and Newman’s bluntness buries the self-pity. Melvyn Douglas’s stern patriarch has a great speech about the evils of swapping farming for oil and the b&w photography by James Wong Howe is as good as it gets.
Hud as a character of his time embodied a new ethos (right or wrong) longing to break free from old norms and seeking acceptance. As a film, it marked the entry of a new type of Western, one that was more intimate, more cynical, and more authentic than those before it.
Roger Ebert
Martin Ritt
Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvin Douglas
USA
1963
English
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Screenwriter
Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr.
Cinematography
James Wong Howe
Editor
Frank Bracht
Original Music
Elmer Bernstein
Art Director
Tambi Larsen, Hal Pereira
Also in This Series
Getting Real charts the evolution of screen acting in American film from 1945-1980, diving into the psychological realism which took audiences somewhere deeper and more authentic than ever before.
Notorious
In the first of our new Film Studies series, Ingrid Bergman is pimped out by US agent Cary Grant to Nazi-sympathizer Claude Rains (ironically the most likeable character in the film). Hitchcock's classic is a prime example of classic Hollywood star power.
All About Eve
Arguably the best backstage melodrama of them all, this story of a young actress on the make seems to have been dipped in acid before the cameras rolled. Bette Davis is the uncomfortably peaking diva Margo Channing and it's her finest role.
Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood on Hollywood: the tale of a screenwriter, Joe Gillis (William Holden), who stumbles into the orbit of a now-forgotten movie star, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), and realizes this silent film diva could be his meal ticket.
A Double Life
In this fascinating lesser known George Cukor picture matinee idol Roland Colman plays a quintessentially English classical theatre actor, Tony John, whose dedication to playing Othello on Broadway leads to jealous fits off-stage.
Red River
Mutiny on the Bounty out on the range. Cattle driver Tom Dunson (John Wayne) is a pioneer, a self-made man who sees no reason to trust anyone but himself. In just his second film, Method man Montgomery Clift is Dunson's adopted son Matt Garth.
12 Angry Men
12 strangers (all of them white men) deliberate on the likelihood that a Puerto Rican teenager murdered his father. It's an open-and-shut case for 11 of them. But Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) is not convinced.
The Heiress
Olivia de Havilland won the Oscar for playing Catherine, a shy and insecure young woman who blossoms under the courtship of handsome gentleman caller Morris (Montgomery Clift). Her wealthy father, Ralph Richardson, looks on with severe skepticism.
A Place in the Sun
George (Montgomery Clift) takes a job in his uncle's firm. But before he can break into the family's charmed inner circle and fall in love with socialite Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), he becomes embroiled with a factory girl (Shelley Winters).
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
On the Waterfront
Marlon Brando's definitive performance as Terry Malloy, a New York dockworker (and once a promising boxer) who loses faith in his union and his smarter but corrupt older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger) after a whistleblower is murdered.