Prodigal Son

Hud makes an impression for a whole generation... -- Picture courtesy of Paramount Pictures

by blogSpotter
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A small note before doing my Hud review ….I deleted my blog from last week, “Freedom’s Just Another Word”. I decided it was too dark, cynical and worst of all, unfunny. It didn’t shed light on anything useful. As a blog writer with a readership of maybe 10 people, I have the prerogative to delete entries (let’s see Newsweek recall a magazine article :-)). My only hope is that nobody saved it in their cache so that it can reemerge somewhere else in all of its mediocrity.

Hud
TCM has been doing a Paul Newman film festival this weekend, to honor him after his recent passing. Last night, they showed 1963’s Hud which is possibly Newman at his best. I saw Hud when I was about 8 and was way too young to grasp any of its adult themes – all I remembered was the scene where the ranchers had to corral and shoot the cattle with hoof and mouth disease.

Hud tells the story of Hud Bannon, an irresponsible 34-year old rancher’s son who is a playboy, minor con artist and general ne’er do well. He lives in a Southwestern ranch town (it looks like it was filmed in the Texas panhandle) with his elderly father, his 17 year old nephew, and a slightly hardened, been-around-the-tracks housekeeper in her late 30’s. Patricia Neal won an Oscar for her outstanding performance as the housekeeper – it was very different from her other film roles. The style and cinematography of this movie would make you think it’s 10 or 20 years more recent. It delves deeply into the characters and is more character-study -- contains no plot gimmicks (it’s much less like typical movies of the early ‘60’s era).

Hud is filmed in black and white – there are many long shots of the countryside and the local townscape. I thought 1971’s Last Picture Show broke this ground, but Hud basically gave us the same thing in 1963. The movie is graphic enough in various scenes that it would probably be “punched up” and released with a “R” rating now.

Hud is basically the story of the Prodigal Son, with Newman as the son and Melvyn Douglas in the role of the elderly Rancher Bannon – a pillar of integrity who despairs at how dishonest and unworthy Hud is. The creators of this film obviously wanted to give some kind of intergenerational warning about restless, destructive youth. An interesting thing has happened along the 45 years since this movie came out – Hud the antihero has been very much embraced as a hero. His wayward hedonism jibes well with the anti-establishment messages that proliferated some 5 years after the movie was made. In fact, Rancher Bannon comes across as a hard-ass, unforgiving old prick of a man – he should cut Hud a break for God’s sake. It’s interesting how time can change our perception of some things.

For his part, Hud is full of life and energy – tooling around town in his ’58 Cadillac convertible, whipping people in barroom brawls, winning a greased pig contest at the local rodeo, and loving all the lonely hearted women around town. Even if he isn’t a tower of virtue, he cuts a dashing cowboy image in an otherwise tumbleweed grayscale world. No wonder he’s seen as a hero now. Hud is well worth renting – my only wish is that they had filmed it in color. I think the barren backdrop would still convey the lonely aspects, but it would be great to see the ’58 Caddy as well as all these fine actors in their Technicolor prime.

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