[John Maddox Roberts]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

I thought I recalled the Lonnie character saying that ("Why Hud") to Hud; maybe not?

I read this online, looks like it was a marketing idea:

Paramount was worried about how the movie would do, especially because its central character was such an unlikable person, and they created a VERY unusual ad campaign, starting with a 24-sheet that solely showed an image of Newman in a small part of it, with the words "Why Hud?", and much of the 24-sheet blank. They wanted to create a mystery as to what the movie was about, in the hopes that people would not have preconceived notions and go see it, feeling that once they did, they would recognize what a quality movie it was, and this marketing strategy obviously worked, because the movie was very successful.

Here's a section of that 24 sheet shown here:
https://www.movieposter.com/poster/b70-3534/Hud.html

This link doesn't work on Safari, but does on Firefox.
Others I don't know.

Back in '63 "Hud"was thought to be a very odd name for a film (McMurtry's name for the character was Hudson, "Hud"for short. Newman won an Oscar for "The Hustler" and got the idea that titles beginning with an "H" were good luck for him (he won another for "Hud." There followed others: "Harper," "Hombre" and so forth. That's star power.