Hud (1963)

Hud is a 1963 western film directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal. The film was produced by Ritt and Newman's recently founded company Salem Productions and was their first film for Paramount Pictures. It was filmed on location on the Texas Panhandle and in Claude, Texas. The screenplay was written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., 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 to become the leading role. With the main role conceived as an anti-hero, the film was later as well described as an anti-western. The film's narrative centers on the ongoing conflict between principled patriarch Homer Bannon and his unscrupulous and arrogant son Hud, which occurs during an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which puts the family's cattle ranch at risk. Lonnie, Homer's grandson and Hud's nephew, is caught in the middle of the conflict and is forced to choose which character to follow as his role model. Hud premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and became a critical and commercial success upon its wide release.