Hud

OSCAR WINNER - 1963
• Best Actress - Patricia Neal
• Best Sup. Actor - Melvyn Douglas
• Best Cinematography - B/W

NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY: 2018

Seven Oscar nominations were the result as celebrated director Martin Ritt (THE FRONT, SOUNDER, NORMA RAE) guided Paul Newman to an Academy Award-nominated performance as Hud Bannon, the rebellious son of a respectable rancher who’s continually at odds with his aging father. Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas co-star in their Oscar-winning roles.


TRIVIA:

• Patricia Neal is only onscreen in this film for 21 minutes, 51 seconds, making her performance both the shortest to win the Best Actress Oscar and the shortest to win in either leading actor categories.

• In preparation for his role, Paul Newman worked on a Texas cattle ranch for several weeks acquiring genuine calluses and a cowboy’s lope.

• Paul Newman played the part of Hud as a villain. He was later stunned that so many young moviegoers had a poster of Hud and viewed him as their hero.

• According to Melvyn Douglas, the atmosphere was amiable and professional but not a laughter-filled set, thanks largely to the inward nature of the cast. He described Paul Newman as “shy, almost withdrawn” and said Patricia Neal was an “internal” person dealing with difficulty in her own life (including a stormy marriage to writer Roald Dahl and the recent death of her seven-year-old daughter). He described Brandon De Wilde as “moody, often to the point of being sullen” and frequently distracted in a manner typical of many young people.

• Patricia Neal was particularly proud of one unscripted moment that made it into the final film. While talking to Hud about her failed marriage, a huge horsefly flew onto the set. Just as she says she’s “done with that cold-blooded bastard,” she zaps the fly with a dish towel. Director Martin Ritt loved it and printed the take.

• Melvyn Douglas enjoyed the people he met - not the wealthy cattlemen and landowners who were far too reactionary for his very liberal sensibilities - but the ordinary ranch hands, who didn’t mind at all that he imitated them to get a sense of his character in the film. He went out drinking with them many nights and when the picture was finished, one of them presented him with a handsome belt with Douglas’ initials on it in silver.

• Some critics were mystified by Melvyn Douglas winning an Oscar, saying his performance was no different than the performances given by fellow character actor Ward Bond in dozens of westerns. However, Douglas gives a dramatic sense of paternity, particularly in his scenes with Paul Newman and Brandon De Wilde.

• Largely because of the recent tragedy of losing her young daughter, Patricia Neal felt she couldn’t leave her husband and surviving children at their home in England for the two months it would take to shoot the picture. Martin Ritt offered to let her take a break to go home between the Texas locations and the Hollywood interiors portion of the shoot.

• Cinematographer James Wong Howe considered his work on this film to be the very best of his entire career. He received his second of two Academy Awards for this film, the first being for THE ROSE TATTOO eight years earlier.

• While In location in Texas, Paul Newman dove into his role by living like the other hands on the ranch where they were filming - sharing meals, sleeping in the bunkhouse, working until his hands became calloused. He studied their mannerisms and the way they walked and incorporated it into Hud’s character.

• Patricia Neal’s character of Alma was actually a black woman in the novel on which the film is based.

• All the exteriors and the interiors except the inside of the Bannons’ house were shot on location in Texas. The house interiors were shot at the studio in Hollywood.

• Included among the American Film Institute’s 1998 list of the 400 films nominated for the Top 100 Greatest American Films.

• Sydney Poitier and Melvyn Douglas received the Academy Awards in 1963 (Poitier ad lead actor, Douglas as supporting actor) both for playing characters with the same first name of Homer (Douglas was Homer Bannon in this film; Poitier was Homer Smith in LILLIES OF THE FIELD).

1963

NR

097360663044

Drama Section

Movie

2018-02-07 18:33:54

2.35:1

Yes

111

United States

2003-12-02

MPEG-2 (H.262)

720p

2.35:1

1

1

Keep Case

~$11.00

2026-03-26

2018-02-07 18:33:54