Come to find out, the movie Hud (1963) was filmed in Claude, Texas.
I had no idea.
This passage jumped out to me because that’s just right up the road!
It’s West Texas though, so that kind of distance is relative.
Claude is a 2 hour drive away.
If you don’t know, Hud is based on McMurtry’s first novel Horseman, Pass By – published when he was 25.
I didn’t know who I was at 25 and Larry McMurtry was already published.
Hats off to that.
I did have one authentic thrill while visiting the set of Hud. The little Panhandle town of Claude, Texas, was substituting for my own mythical small town, Thalia. I’ve used Thalia as a setting for several books, including all of the Last Picture Show quintet. Driving through Claude the next morning, on my way back to my wife and young child, I noticed that the water tower in Claude didn’t say Claude anymore: it said Thalia. That my invention had caused a small town in North Texas to change the name on its water tower—even temporarily—was thrill enough to me: and Hollywood provided it!
