DVD Review: Martin Ritt’s Hud on Paramount Home Video

Though it’s betrayed by the DVD’s cover art, Wong Howe’s camerawork should be studied in film schools.

HudMartin Ritt’s remarkably dull Hud more or less plays out as a home-on-the-range knock-off of Nicholas Ray’s brilliant Rebel Without a Cause. Paul Newman stars as Hud Bannon, the Cain to nephew Lonnie’s Abel. When Newman’s Alpha Male isn’t bedding the town’s married women, he’s busy picking fights and shoving his cock-of-the-walk routine under his ailing father’s nose. Ritt strains to equate the foot-and-mouth disease that kills one of his father’s heifers to Hud’s own perpetual foot-in-mouth. Ritt lays on the Southern comfort so thick it appears as if he’s got something to prove: the cook played by Oscar-winner Patricia Neal frequently references the ingredients of her latest Southern-fried concoction and considerable down-time is spent observing the games people play in the dust bowl. The film’s father-son disconnect is a ham-fisted one, but Newman and Melvyn Douglas make for excellent sparring partners. Can’t say that Hud’s cool rage is ever really justified, but I suppose I’d be pissed too if my name was Hud and everyone in my house was named after virgins and Greek poets. There’s very little to recommend here (the insights are as profound as “no one gets out of life alive”) besides James Wong Howe’s glorious black-and-white cinematography and Newman’s smarmy performance—his legs are perpetually open and even a department store’s mannequin isn’t safe from his lascivious gaze. The best single moment, though, is owned by Neal’s heavenly Alma. Waking Brandon de Wilde’s young lamb from his innocent slumber, she asks: “Are you sleeping in the raw again?”

Image/Sound

James Wong Howe won an Oscar for Hud’s gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, and Paramount Home Entertainment does a top-notch job preserving every nuance of his widescreen compositions. Skin tones are excellent and you can drown in the film’s inky blacks. Whites can get a little blinding, but they’re never overblown. The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track is equally impressive. Dialogue is crystal clear, but it’s all the mooing, punching, and smashing glass that truly resonates.

Extras

None.

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Overall

Though it’s betrayed by the DVD’s cover art, Wong Howe’s camerawork should be studied in film schools.

Score: 
 Cast: Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon de Wilde  Director: Martin Ritt  Screenwriter: Harriest Frank Jr., Irving Ravetch  Distributor: Paramount Home Video  Running Time: 111 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1963  Release Date: December 2, 2003  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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