MovieChat Forums > Hud (1963) Discussion > Was there some sort of controversy aroun...

Was there some sort of controversy around this film?

posted 18 years ago by recalcitrant44
5 replies | jump to latest

I saw the film today. Great film. It wins 2 of the 4 Oscar Categories for actress, and neither of them were present. Newman is nominated and loses. And the damn picture isn't even nominated.

2 wins & 3 nominations out of 4 in the acting categories, and no Best Picture nod. What happened?

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] JasperMead 18 years ago

The Academy of Motion Pictures thought that Hud was unsavoury in a variety of ways. With all due respect to Sidney Portier, his character was full of hope and faith. Compare that to Newman's character who was a sexually arrogant womanising, brawling alcoholic, and which character is the safest to vote for??

Teens loved Hud. They saw him as rebellious and cool, instead of seeing the ways in which he could manipulate and be cruel to his family and accquaintances.

Hud was a nasty piece of work who used women as sexual objects and attempted to rape Alma, yet women voted Paul Newman as the man they would most like to sleep with - the Academy of Motion pictures didn't think it was very appropriate encouragement.

All in all, because of the material of Hud, it never really had a chance to take out The Best Actor and Best Picture catagory. On the other hand, Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas played characters with morals and likeable characteristics.

[–] LordKao 16 years ago

Teens loved Hud. They saw him as rebellious and cool, instead of seeing the ways in which he could manipulate and be cruel to his family and accquaintances.

Hud was a nasty piece of work who used women as sexual objects and attempted to rape Alma, yet women voted Paul Newman as the man they would most like to sleep with - the Academy of Motion pictures didn't think it was very appropriate encouragement.

Here's what Paul Newman himself had to say about it:

[The film] backfired. We thought the last thing people would do was accept Hud as a heroic character. After all, Hud is amoral, greedy, self-centered, selfish, in it for what he can get at the expense of the community. We thought we could give him the external graces... but morally, he's an empty suit. We thought the audience would be unnerved by that and might be taught by that. But kids thought he was terrific! His amorality just went right over their heads; all they saw was this western, heroic individual.

[–] rudeboy_murray 18 years ago

Hud was released towards the end of the era when the studios still had a big influence on Academy members voting. They would throw their campaign money behind their big contenders and 'encourage' their contracted staff to vote for them. This explains why Cleopatra - a notorious, critically mauled box office flop - and How the West Was Won, a big box office hit but hardly a well remembered movie, were nominated for Best Picture over Hud - a smaller film with supposed 'unsavoury' content.

[–] ElectricBird 16 years ago

Poor Paul was almost always robbed of an Oscar.