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Hud

Paramount Pictures, 1963

Starring Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon de Wilde

Directed by Martin Ritt

VCD, Rs. 199

Only Ole Blue Eyes could play this role to perfection. Hud is the film version of Larry McMurtry's novel Horseman Pass By, a story of a deeply cynical cowboy who has lost all values and is whiling away his life womanising and drinking. (Incidentally, McMurtry is still going strong: he wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.)

Director Martin Ritt, who once taught Paul Newman the nuances of acting at the Actor's Workshop (Rod Steiger and Lee Remick were also his students), gets a top draw performance from Paul Newman, never mind if the actor missed out on the Oscars again.

For Paul Newman the role of Hud was third time unlucky. Twice before he had been nominated for the Best Actor award for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Hustler and lost out both times. In 1964, he was again nominated and this time it was Sidney Poitier who picked up the Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field.

However Hud did win three Oscars — Best Supporting Actor which went to Melvyn Douglas, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Patricia Neal and Best Cinematographer for James Wong Howe in the black and white category.

Paul Newman is not a hero with a tragic flaw in Hud. He is a downright bad 'un with not a touch of goodness about him. From the very start where he sneaks out of a married woman's bed, ready to implicate his 17-year-old nephew when confronted by the cuckolded husband, till the end when he is left alone on the ranch that he was going to legally wrest from his father, there is nothing redeeming about him.

He is even willing to sneakily foist on an unsuspecting buyer a herd of cows suffering from the foot-and-mouth disease, much to the disgust of his old father. However, despite all his perverseness, one is left shedding a silent tear for the eponymous Hud.

A philosophical side of the hero emerges when he says things like " My momma used to love but she died," and " you don't look out for yourself, the only helping hand you'll ever get is when they lower the box," and the stark last few lines " the world is so full of crap a man's gonna get into sooner or later."

Newman's angst looks as if it has come about after his brother's death in a car accident. His father, Homer Bannon, bemoans "How did a man like you come to be a son to me?" clarifies in a poignant scene that what grieves him is not the loss of the elder son but the fact that "You (Hud) never gave a damn".

Hud Bannon plumbs the depths when he attempts to violate their housekeeper, Alma (Patricia Neal) only to be prevented from completing the dastardly act (after all, you can't get around to calling Paul Newman a rapist!) by his hero-worshipping nephew Lon Bannon (Brandon de Wilde).

It's doubtful if any other contemporary actor would have dared take up such a negative role though the redoubtable film critic Pauline Kael dubbed the film as well made but dishonest piece of liberal sermonising.

D. RAVI SHANKAR

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