“The embarrassing thing is that my salad dressing is out grossing my films” – Paul Newman
Paul Newman was and always will be a true legend of the silver screen. Starting off in the world of theatre, being spotted by two talent agents at his school of Yale university’s school of drama. It wasn’t long before Newman was sky-rocketed into stardom and swiftly became a regular face in the world of movies. Across his career Newman had many collaborators with whom he would return to often, being directed by George Roy Hill, William Goldman scripts, or starring with Robert Redford or his own wife Joanne Woodward. There is a truly immense charisma to Newman that I feel will never be replicated, but thankfully it was preserved in the films that we have today. The bright eyed charisma of those early roles however did eventually lead into more reflective work in the 80’s and onward, some have commented that this could have been influenced by the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978. Either way the breadth of Newman’s career is truly outstanding, I thought to focus a triple bill on his three films under the direction of Martin Ritt, the three films (two with his wife of fifty years Joanne Woodward) that I feel best exemplify the great rugged strengths of his early career.
The Long Hot Summer (1958)
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This deep south melodrama totally aping off the success (commercially but certainly not critically in this authors eyes) of the also Newman starring Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a feast for the eyes when it comes to scintillating summer sex-appeal and chaste love affairs. The heat and the sweat glistens as Newman’s drifter finds his way into the Varner family in this Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr written amalgamation of the William Falkner novella Spotted Houses, the short story Barn Burning and the novel The Hamlet. The Varner family being led by a supremely Big-Daddy-esque Orson Welles, trying his best to set his daughter Clara up with a man with more grit than her current beau, to mend his thwarted relationship with his son, and ultimately in Newman’s Ben Quick, find a successful heir to his family fortune and legacy. Clara is played by Joanne Woodward and the years of tales of on-screen chemistry bleeding into off are legendary for all the right reasons. Angela Lansbury, who appears in the film as Welles mistress in a typically well performed role, commented that Newman and Woodward from the off “seemed to have such a total understanding of each other”. Lansbury also enjoyed working with Ritt a fair amount, commenting on his “wonderful enthusiasm and earthy sex quality”, going on to state that Ritt “loved the ‘dirtiness’ of the [film]”. The dirtiness is everywhere, in the viscera of the dirt and sweat, and of course in the discussions and depictions of flirtations and sexual conquests. Beyond fun performances from the cast, also including Lee Remick as a vivacious young small town sex-symbol, the film is a little too sanitised for my taste. Not unlike the film of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. There is the veneer of the dirtiness Lansbury commented upon, but ultimately it’s all servicing a bland love triangle (who on earth would ever believe Woodward would not go with Newman? Hell, who would ever not go with Newman?) and a supremely undeveloped father-son collision. A fine film as a slight and beautiful looking 50’s Technicolor melodrama, but certainly not the best of either Newman or Ritt’s early careers.
Paris
Blues (1961)
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Our second film pairing Newman with his wife of 50 years, Joanne Woodward. I can’t resist throwing in this famous comment from Newman before we continue, as he responded to an interviewers question on why he was never tempted away from his wife...
“Why fool around with hamburger when you have steak at home?”
Their off-screen romance indelibly makes an impact on their characters within his terrific Martin Ritt directed Paris jazz drama, as we follow Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as two American musicians who have found refuge in Paris in the early sixties. For Newman’s Ram Bowen the refuge is a creative one, whereas for Poitier the refuge is from the intense racial oppression of the states, which is seemingly non-existent in the Paris of the time. Our two gentlemen fall madly in love each with Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carrol, two travelling American tourists. Woodward and Newman pair up and Poitier and Carrol pair up, taking a distinct departure from the exploration of interracial romance at the heart of the Harold Flender novel that the film was based upon. The film does feature some frank discussion on race between Carroll and Poitier, that are poignant and well written and naturally very well acted, as they discuss racial politics against the beautiful Parisian landscape that seems so distant and yet so close. Ritt takes great pleasure in filming Paris and for as much as he does take time highlighting the grandeur of the beautiful city, he also spends much of the film’s run-time in the smaller and less glamorous parts of the city. This is where we spend our chief scenes with Newman and Woodward, where the film spends most of its time. The relationship and romance is fleeting in its nature but has complexities and touches of realism that make it all the more interesting. Paris Blues is a wonderful Jazz movie, a wonderful Paris movie and a splendid film to spend some time romancing with my personal favourite Hollywood couple.
Hud
(1963)
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This blazing performance from Newman still sets the screen ablaze today. However misguided the opinion may be, perhaps this is and always will the greatest testament to Newman’s charisma that there will ever be. Newman’s titular Hud Bannon is not a great guy, as a matter of fact he is a philandering, abusing, drunken man who has led to an almost incomparable level of pain within his family unit. But... We can’t take our eyes from him. His nephew Lonnie, played with grand naivety and eventually great reckoning by Brandon De Wilde, follows him idolising him at every turn. Every woman in town, married or not, wants to go to bed with him, and often do. We as an audience follow him also and despite all we know of him, Newman’s so god damn charming and handsome that we long for him a better life for the cad. Newman commented himself that he played the role intentionally as “a villain” and was greatly shocked when people started idolising him. The film is another collaboration between Newman and Ritt, and as much as Ritt took pleasure in presenting Paris, he seems to take more pleasure in showing us the brutal reality of a western plain. This is paired in the narrative with Hud’s reckless actions almost reaping a plague upon his family and their herd of cows. The power of Newman’s character is that seemingly nothing effects him, not even the grandest tragedy, or the grandest of nights. The two people in the film that see through Hud, are in fact are two Oscar winning performances, with Newman nominated but losing to Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field. I personally think Newman was superior, with Poitier’s best work to be found in other excellent films. Melvyn Douglas is our first winner (Best Supporting Actor) for his turn as Homer Bannon, Hud’s father, long since resigned to the nature of his son. Douglas has two pivotal points in the film; one where he finally takes a turn at dressing down Hud, and the other where he has to put down his two prized bulls. In both scenes he is dealing with the current nature of something he has bred and put his life into making the best it can be – the brutal metaphor that lies at the heart of the film. Patricia Neal is our other Oscar winner (the shortest on-screen Best Actress win of all time, with 21 minutes and 51 seconds), Neal is sensational as the at once lonesome and perennially witty housekeeper Alma Brown. Newman is sensational and solidified his specific brand of charisma here, before subverting it and commenting upon it in later films to come, even making subversion's within this very film.
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Only getting better with each film, both Newman and Ritt brought out the best in each other, with Newman giving the powerhouse performances to emblaze some of Ritt’s finest dramas and Ritt giving Newman three sublime star-vehicles to do exactly what he does best.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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