MovieChat Forums > Hud (1963) Discussion > Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal

posted 19 years ago by DC1977
7 replies | jump to latest

I thought this was a great film. Its slow and not a great deal happens but it doesn't matter. The screenplay and acting are superb.

I was surprised that Patricia Neal won the Best Actress Oscar, it was definitely an Oscar calibre performance but it was really a supporting role. She must have been on screen less than Douglas who won Best Supporting Actor.

I would have thought that she would have been up for Best Supporting Actress instead. But either way she was terrific in it.

[–] townfanchris 19 years ago

I don't like how they have 'Best Actor' and 'Best Actress' there should just be Best Lead Role and Best Supporting Role.

[–] E_D_N 19 years ago

Well, it doesn't really matter IMO...

I thought she was phenomenal here and well deserved her Oscar.

So did MELVIN DOUGLAS...

in fact, everyone here was superlative. Paul Newman, Brandon De Wilde...

Great direction by Martin Ritt, great cinematography by J.W. Howe, great L. McMurtry script, great score...

A masterpiece!

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[–] eddyskiva 18 years ago

That would come to the same thing... same as Best Actor and Best Actress...
Neal is the only female (of any note) in the film... it's the 'female lead'... even though, yes, the 'female lead' is essentially a supporting part (just like Louise Fletcher's in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). The Academy doesn't really make the decision on what category actors are placed in. It's done by the studio, the promoter's, and sometimes the actor themself.

[–] borbetomagus 17 years ago

I think she was better in 'A Face in the Crowd'.

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 17 years ago

It's been often questioned if Patricia Neal truly won because of her off-screen troubles; I once heard a quote somewhere that "I'd vote for Patricia Neal just because of what she's gone through in real life." She went through a tumultuous affair with Gary Cooper during the making of The Fountainhead; she was 21 and he was 46. She became pregnant and he convinced her to have an abortion, which haunted her for years. She suffered a nervous breakdown in 1952 but married Roald Dahl the next year. Just a year before Hud was released, her young daughter died of encephalitis, not to mention she had a son whose carriage was hit by a taxi when he was just four months old.

I think that Neal gave a fine performance but she really did belong in the Best Supporting Actress category, and off-screen sadness has been a cause of "Sympathy Oscars"; Another famous one is Elizabeth Taylor winning for Butterfield 8 over Shirley MacLaine for The Apartment; even Elizabeth Taylor thought so, for she had been gravely ill just before the Oscars.

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I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me

[–] Devinm1978 16 years ago

By any standard, Ms. Neal's role in this film was indeed a supporting one. Her performance is fantastic, but I, too kept thinking "she should have won best supporting actress." I feel the same way about Simone Signoret's win for "Room at the Top;" great job, but clearly a supporting role.

[–] dinasztie13 15 years ago

She should have won for best supporting actress. She was great, but she definitely wasn't the lead in the movie. That year the supporting field was very weak, she would have by a mile and Shirley MacLaine could have won for Irma La Douce.