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Stamper family values, "the ruling scabs of Oregon." Logging is the business, a cast-encased shattered arm merely heightens the splenetic intransigence of the patriarch (Henry Fonda), who negotiates with "Commie-pinko" strikers via dynamite. The oldest son (Paul Newman) is a stickler for independence unless it concerns his wife (Lee Remick), the nephew (Richard Jaeckel) is a born-again Christian not too pious to enjoy a morning quickie with his own missus (Linda Lawson). Enter the Prodigal (Michael Sarrazin), shaggy "like some kind of New York fairy," a moist-eyed sensitivity to camouflage a streak of score-settling anger. Damn the community, full speed into the lumberyard: "I've got contracts to fill, eggs to hatch and cats to kill." Rugged Yang to Rachel, Rachel's tender Yin, prickly white-collar opera and formidable Pacific Northwest immersion, Newman's streamlining of the Ken Kesey opus confirms a filmmaker of most vivid resources. Hard-hats work hard and play hard, "they drink beer and play grab-ass with each other's motorcycles" at the beach picnic that inevitably turns into a brawl. The countercultural outsider meanwhile prefers the company of the oppressed hausfrau, whose inner life is revealed as she remembers a stillborn baby while hanging clothes to dry. Ritt's Hud is Newman's focus of consideration, his labor sequences bespeak a study of Anthony Mann physicality, alive to the splintering of wood and to roaring chainsaws and honking tractors that give way at lunchtime to country music squeaking out of a portable radio. Nature's revenge is swift and absolute, a magnificent set piece (a nervously joking figure pinned under a trunk as the tide rises) followed by a harrowed tableau (an old man's death rattle in a hospital two-shot). "Just like King Kong, ya got to knock 'im down." The finale takes after Kazan's Wild River with a macabre twist. With Sam Gilman, Lee de Broux, Cliff Potts, Roy Jenson, Charles Tyner, and Joe Maross.
--- Fernando F. Croce |