Hud

1963 film by Martin Ritt

Film · TMDB

7.2

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."

Released: 1963-05-24112 minDir: Martin RittDrama, WesternBudget: $2.5MBox office: $10.0M

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Cast

Paul Newman as Hud Bannon
Melvyn Douglas as Homer Bannon
Patricia Neal as Alma Brown
Brandon De Wilde as Lon 'Lonnie' Bannon
Whit Bissell as Mr. Burris
Crahan Denton as Jesse

Themes

~22 min read

Article

Hud is a 1963 American contemporary Western film directed and produced by Martin Ritt, and starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon deWilde, and Patricia Neal. It was produced by Ritt and Newman's recently founded company, Salem Productions, and was their first film for Paramount Pictures. Its screenplay was by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. and was based on Larry McMurtry's 1961 novel, Horseman, Pass By. The film's title character, Hud Bannon, was a minor character in the original screenplay, but was reworked as the lead role. With its main character an antihero, Hud was later described as a revisionist Western.

The film was shot on location on the Texas Panhandle, including Claude, Texas. Its story centers on the ongoing conflict between principled patriarch Homer Bannon (Douglas) and his unscrupulous and arrogant son, Hud (Newman), during an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which puts the family's cattle ranch at risk. Lonnie (deWilde), Homer's grandson and Hud's nephew, is caught in the conflict and forced to choose which character to follow.