Hud

Hud is a 1963 modern western film drama directed by Martin Ritt and which starred Paul Newman, Brandon deWilde, Melvin Douglas and Patricia Neal.  It is based on a novel, Horseman, Pass By, written by Larry McMurtry in 1961, which I recently read.

Hud was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning three:  Neal for Best Actress, Douglas for Best Supporting Actor and James Wong Howe for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.  Ritt (Best Director won by Tony Richardson for Tom Jones) and Newman (Best Actor won by Sidney Poitier for Lillies of the Field) were also nominated.

In the film, Homer (Douglas) runs a cattle ranch in Texas in the mid Twentieth Century along with his son Hud (Newman) and grandson Lonnie (deWilde).  Hud is Lonnie's uncle.  Alma (Neal) is the family's cook.

Lonnie, an impressionable teenager, is torn between the ambitious, self-centered and fun-loving Hud and the highly-principled, honest Homer.  One night Hud and Lonnie come home drunk and run into Homer.

Hud: Something seems to be eating away at your liver.  

Homer:  You, Hud...like always.  

Lonnie:  What'd ya climbin' on Hud for?

Homer:  Ya think a lot a Hud, do ya?  Ya think he's a real man.  Well, ya bein' tuck in.  

Hud:  He's my daddy and he knows.  

Homer:  I know, yeah, you're smart.  Ya got your share a guts.  Ya can talk a man into trusting ya and a woman into wanting ya.

Hud:  Then I got it made, ain't I?  

Homer:  To hear you tell.  

Hud:  I want ya to get it off your chest, gripin' all this time what I done to Norman (accidentally killing his brother, Lonnie's father).

Homer:  Ya were drunk and careless.  

Hud:  Ya had 15 years to get over it.  That's half a my life.  

Homer:  That's not our quarrel and never has been.  

Hud:  Well, the hell it ain't.

Homer:  No, boy, I was sick a you long before that.

Hud:  Well, isn't life full of surprises.  Well, alright, what turned you so sour on me, not that I give a damn?

Homer:  Just that, Hud, you don't give a damn.  That's all.  That's the whole of it...You still don't get it, do ya?  Ya don't care about people.  Ya don't give a damn about them.  Oh, ya got all that charm goin' for ya and it makes the youngsters wanna be like ya.  That's the shame of it cuz ya don't value nothin'.  Ya don't respect nothin'.  Ya don't put no check on your appetites at all.  Ya live just for yourself and that makes ya not fit to live with.

I think this scene won Douglas his Oscar.