Robert Hinkle

Having been burned by compromises to censors on his earlier films Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth, Paul Newman decided to star in as uncompromising a property as he could find. That property was Hud, inspired by a portion of Larry McMurtry's novel, Horseman Pass By. Hud Bannon (Newman) is a young Texas rancher who lives with his cattleman father Homer (Melvyn Douglas) and his hero-worshipping nephew Lon (Brandon DeWilde). Hud is an amoral, cold-hearted creature; his father, who holds Hud responsible for the death of his other son, tries to imbue Lon with a sense of decency and responsibility to others, but Lon is devoted to Hud and isn't inclined to listen. When hoof-and-mouth disease shows up in one of the elder Bannon's cows, Hud is all for selling the herd before the government inspectors find out. But Homer orders the cattle destroyed (the film's most harrowing sequence), driving an even deeper wedge between himself and Hud. Finally, Hud steps over the line by attempting to rape Alma (Patricia Neal), the earthy but warm-hearted housekeeper. Paul Newman was so repellantly brilliant as an unregenerate heel that his Oscar nomination for Hud was a foregone conclusion. Although Newman lost the Oscar to Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field, Oscars did go to Neal for Best Actress, Douglas for Best Supporting Actor, and cinematographer James Wong Howe.

Hud is a man who cares more for himself than he does his young nephew, his dad, or even their understanding housekeeper. When disease threatens the cattle on the Bannon Ranch, the conflict between Hud and his old-line father reaches an all time high.

After his wife dies in childbirth en route to California in 1870, Joel McCrea ("Sullivan's Travels," "Buffalo Bill") settles down in Oklahoma. He quickly finds trouble when he tries to protect an Indian woman caring for his baby from the two villains who are attempting to cheat her father out of his oil-rich land. With Emmy-winner Barbara Hale ("Perry Mason") and Brad Dexter ("The Magnificent Seven").

Widowed doctor John Brighton (Joel McCrea) settles in a small Oklahoma town, where his thriving practice and spirited defense of the local Indian population win him many admirers -- with the big exception of evil cattle barons Cass (Brad Dexter) and Mel Dobie (Douglas Dick). And when Cass finds oil on another man's land, a sudden act of violence leads to a vow of revenge, setting the stage for a showdown between Brighton and the bad guys.