For their Hud script, Irving Ravetch and wife Harriet Frank, Jr. were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won both the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Writers Guild of America Award for same. Their other screenplays included The Long, Hot Summer (based on William Faulkner‘s “Spotted Horses”, “Barn Burning” and “The Hamlet”), Home from the Hill, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The Reivers, The Spikes Gang, The Cowboys, The Sound and the Fury, Norma Rae, Murphy’s Romance and Stanley & Iris. Ravetch passed in 2010; Frank is still with us.
Hud: “How much you take the boys for tonight?”
Alma: “Twenty dollars and some change.”
Hud: “You’re a dangerous woman.”
Alma: “I’m a good poker player.”
Hud: “You’re a good housekeeper. You’re a good cook. You’re a good laundress. (beat) What else are you good at?”
Alma: “At taking care of myself.”
Hud: “You shouldn’t have to, a woman looks like you.”
Alma: “That’s what my ex-husband used to tell me. Before he took my wallet, my gasoline credit card, and left me stranded in a motel in Alberquerque.”
Hud: “What did you do to make him take to the hills? Wear your curlers to bed or something?
Alma: “Ed’s a gambler. He’s probably up at Vegas or Reno, dealing at night, losing it all back in the daytime.”
Hud: “Man like that sounds no better than a heel.”
Alma: “Only thing he was ever good for was scratching my back.”
Hud: “Still got that itch?”
Originally posted on 9.19.15.