I looked up Brandon De Wilde and he did quite a bit of TV. When he was really young he did a
one season tv series where he was a regular. Some of the more notable series he made appearances
on were:
Ironside
Night Gallery
The Virginian (3 episodes)
The Young Rebels (a TV series I posted about here awhile ago concerning the Revolutionary War. Brandon played "Young Nathan Hale.")
Love, American Style (hmmmm...episode was called "Love and the Bachelor")
Hawaii Five-O
The Name of the Game
Combat! (glad to see he's in one of these, so I'll be seeing it!)
The Defenders
12 O'Clock High
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (a three part western themed story)
The Greatest Show on Earth (did you know there was a TV Series of this?)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (interestingly, he was in the very last 1/2 hour episode of this series and the network censored it and didn't air it
for reasons I used to know, but have forgotten. A couple years later, though, it was included in the syndication
airings for the show and no one had any objections.)
Nearly all of these shows are airing on TV in one way or another right now.
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As for Hud, it's one of my favorite films. I don't know the zeitgeist of the oscars at the time, but I happen to think
of the five nominated best pictures that year that this one is better than all of those five. I don't know why it did
not get a nom for Best Picture. (The New York Film Critics had Hud runner-up in both Picture and Director to Tom Jones.)
Looking for standard clues about nominations it's hard to pinpoint anything. It was an era where huge big budget monstrosities got
nominations, whether worthy or not--things like The Longest Day, How the West Was Won, Cleopatra, Doctor Doolittle. Racial issues
were front and center which probably accounted for the nice but nothing extraordinary Lilies of the Field getting a nom and Poitier
winning over Paul Newman. Cleopatra was considered a turkey by most critics, but audiences appreciated it, at least somewhat. The
release dates were all over the place, including Hud those six films were released in February, May, June, October and two in December,
including Tom Jones. Tom Jones may have struck a chord because it was a kind of comedic romance with scenes scored in a silent movie
type way and after all the turmoil of the previous year and the British invasion on the way, it may have been a breath of fresh air and a matter
of timing.
The five films nominated that year, total nominations in parentheses, were America America (4), How the West Was Won (
, Lilies of the Field (5),
Cleopatra (9) and Tom Jones (10). Hud had 7 nominations, including three acting (two won!) and writing, directing, cinematography (won!) and
b&w art direction. Only two of the BP nominees had corresponding director nominations so it was a foregone conclusion that one of those was
a probable win for Best Picture, too, and that was Tom Jones or America America. Both released in Dec. by the way.
The three other directing noms, by the way, were for: The Cardinal, Federico Fellini's 8-1/2 and Hud.
When you look at these six films on hindsight people now really feel lukewarm toward Tom Jones. It was
advertised as racy and bawdy and it does have a great scene with Albert Finney where he and his paramour
are practically making love in the guise of eating dinner. It was a scene much talked about and parodies,
including a hilarious episode of F-Troop. It all seems so tame now and rather boring. Even the cinematography
is unappealing. It was released in theatres in a director's cut (which was 2-3 minutes shorter than the original!)
in the late 80's or early 90's and I saw it (for the second time) on the big screen and was quite underwhelmed.
On the imdb boards, the users and critics ratings interesting give these films the following ratings:
7.9 Hud
7.9 America America
7.7 Lilies of the Field
7.1 How the West Was Won
7.0 Cleopatra
6.8 Tom Jones
Of all the films, Tom Jones is the lowest rated. And despite Hud & America America having the
same rating, America was rated by about 3,000 people and Hud by 13,000 people.
America America is perhaps one of those rather lost films that never appears anywhere for people to see.
Because of that, I thought it must have been way overrated at the time and probably "oscar boring."
It did have a limited vhs release once and I saw it then. To my surprise, even after a near three hour
running time I thought it a very worthwhile, good and entertaining film.
It certainly is a better made and told film than Cleopatra, but of those six films I'd rate Hud first, but Cleopatra
second because it's excesses are just too delicious to ignore, especially in 70mm in a movie theatre! My third
choice would be America America.
Hud deserved better at the oscars, but it did win three of them and obviously it seems people like it as evidenced
by its imdb rating, however skewed those might be at times.
By the way, I am not a fan of movie remakes unless there is a very good reason to do so.
I think HUD is near perfect, but there is a good reason to consider remaking it. In the original
story, the Patricia Neal character, Alma, is black, and the sensibilities of the time would not have
approved of that. In fact, on the imdb page there is a thread for pondering who might've been
cast back then f they'd stuck to the original story. There's not many replies, but it's an interesting
question to ponder.
Another film that could be remade because the times didn't allow it to be shot the way it was written
is a best picture nominee (1947, I believe) titled Crossfire. It's about soldiers accused of anti-semitism
and for bashing another soldier because of it. The original book, though, titled A Brick Foxhole, was
actually about a gay bashing.
Now back to Brandon De Wilde and classic TV, heh!