Hud

Hud Bannon, 34, comes from a Texas cattle-ranching family. Unlike his aging father Homer Bannon, whose entire life has always been the ranch, self-absorbed and reckless Hud sees the ranch and ranching solely as a means to live his hard-and-fast life, which includes copious amounts of alcohol and cavorting with loose women, regardless of their marital status. Also living in the Bannons' ranch house is 17-year-old Lonnie Bannon, Homer's grandson from Hud's older brother Norman, who died when Lonnie was only two. Beyond the open differences in their wants in life, a further underlying tension simmers between Homer and Hud, but Lonnie admires Hud and thinks that Homer deals with him too harshly. The family's recently-arrived new housekeeper, middle-aged divorcee Alma Brown, is well aware that both Hud and Lonnie are attracted to her, each in his own way. A crisis on the ranch and the three Bannon men's reactions to it have the potential to clarify the interrelationships among the members of the Bannon household.