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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
Howard Hughes exists in my memories as a reclusive figure much speculated about as he hid in his darkened penthouse suite
of the Desert Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Newspaper articles speculated about whether or not he was still alive and
who, really, was running his vast business empire. Stories periodically leaked to the press about a man haggard and gaunt
with four inch long fingernails and a paranoid fear of contact with germs or bacteria. His eventual death created a further
news frenzy as it developed that he had died without a will and numerous Hughes heir wannabes popped out of the woodwork claiming
kinship with the world's first billionaire.
The earlier 1980 movie, "Melvin and Howard," appeared about this time, but this was sheer fantasy as Hughes
was never known to leave his penthouse suite after he once moved in.
"The Aviator" covers pretty much everything before Hughes' eventual move from California to Las Vegas. It is
appropriately titled as Hughes confessed that designing planes and then flying them as a risk-taking test pilot was what he
enjoyed most in his life.
I have to admit to being overwhelmingly impressed by Hughes' business acumen. Here was a guy who started off with great
inherited wealth and then made a further fortune by a flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants gut instinct. And his instincts always
went against the tide of the conventional wisdom of the day as he was just light years ahead of everybody else. Once an idea
was fixated in his mental scope, he never let go and pursued it with a ferocious tenacity, cost be damned, until he achieved
his goal. He did it his way and he did it the best way possible. Hughes never settled for second best or second class in anything.
I have to admire a guy like this. Well, let's be honest, we all have to admire someone like this.
Whether shooting movies with the best possible technology, and then dumping them if a better technology, sound in the
case of "Hell's Angels," comes along, seeing that overseas flights are the next big advance in commercial aviation,
designing the world's best fighter planes, or recognizing years ahead of their time that jet engines would be the wave of
the future, Howard Hughes has to be one of the most original visionaries of the Twentieth Century.
Leonardo DiCaprio does a much better job with his portrayal of Howard Hughes than he did in his last pairing with Scorsese
in the lamentable "Gangs of New York." I have to admit to being so distressed with that performance that I kept
looking for DiCaprio to flop in this role, but, to be honest about this, I have to admit that he does a fairly creditable
job. Not Oscar worthy, but good enough to be recognized and complimented.
I am curious as to what Scorsese saw in DiCaprio, or how their working relationship fared in "Gangs of New York,"
that made Scorsese think that DeCaprio would be the best choice for this role. I would have thought that their working relationship
might have been somewhat frayed after that movie crashed, both at the box office and later at the Oscar awards ceremony. Although
I can imagine other actors with more "heft" doing a better job of carrying this role, Scorsese apparently decided
a second outing with DiCaprio might be the charm, and, by and large, his instincts were correct.
Scorsese, one of the most admired directors of American cinema, has presented us with another beautifully filmed and capably
directed movie of epic proportions. In spite of this success, however, both of his recent films possess a feeling of being
bloated, of trying to cover just too much historical ground in one film. Three hours is an awfully long movie, and I have
to wonder if Scorsese suffers somewhat from having lost his blue editing pencil.
The phrase "Less is More" has been lost on him, and I would love to see someone give Scorsese $10 or $15 million
and then challenge him to direct and produce a small film to see if he can go back to the days when saying it simply is often
the best way to tell it.
Well, I can kvetch all I want, but it doesn't detract from the fact that this is one superlatively done movie. That being
said, the size and scope of "The Aviator" prevents us from getting a handle on the inner being of the people in
this movie, with the exception of the wondrously cast Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn. Epic movies have the luxury of
having more time to make a statement, but what usually gets lost is the intimacy that allows us to get inside the persons
involved.
As for the female costars in this movie, whoever cast Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow ought to be taken out and shot. I am
not complaining about her acting, but her features. Stefani's long face and angular features do not bear a smidgeon of a resemblance
to the fine-featured Harlow, one of the great beauties of her day.
Kate Beckinsale is much better as Ava Gardner, but where is the fire in this woman? She is all sweetness and light except
for the one time when she finds out that Hughes has bugged her home to spy on what she is doing and with whom she is spending
her time. Ava Gardner was one tempestuous actress who was almost too much for Frank Sinatra to handle in their relationship,
and that says a lot about her fiery personality.
But I cannot praise enough Cate Blanchett for her brilliant portrayal of Katherine Hepburn, one of Hughes' life long love
interests and a true friend. She remained loyal to him even after she left him for Spencer Tracy, and Hughes returned the
favor by buying a batch of compromising pictures from a snoopy reporter that would have outed their illicit relationship (Tracy
was married to another woman at the time).
Most movie reviews have commented on the women in the life of Howard Hughes as if the men in his life were greatly overshadowed
or failed to exist. While justifiable, this is not really fair as all the male actors in this movie also deserve plaudits.
The modern day every man and the heir of the Karl Malden mantle, John C. Reilly, is just wonderful as Hughes' all around gopher
and financial whiz kid who is able to produce the necessary funds at the last minute to complete the project of the moment.
And as Hughes' was so far ahead of everybody else, he was always in need of additional funds.
A more portly Alec Baldwin does a very fine job as Hughes' nemesis, Juan Trippe, the amoral head of Pan American Airways
and a lifelong competitor of Hughes' after his purchase of Trans World Airlines. Trippe would stoop to any level to cheat
Hughes out of his holdings, including bribing anyone in Congress who would further his aims of preserving his monopoly on
intercontinental flights.
Finally, Alan Alda is a welcome sight as the corrupt Senator from Maine beholden to Trippe who mistakenly thinks that
he can best Hughes in a filmed showdown before his Senatorial committee.
Everything about "The Aviator" is First Class. Take this Scorsesean flight.
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
Howard Hughes is initially presented as a naive, Texas rube in the Glitter Gulch trying to escape his "disease infested
swamp of a homeland" near Houston, Texas by making a financial success of his first movie, "Hell's Angels."
His parents had both died while he was still a young man, leaving him a man of wealth as the 100% owner of Hughes Tool
Company, an oil drilling equipment supply firm.
Ever the perfectionist, Hughes is on the set of his first movie, "Hell's Angels," trying to complete the picture
according to his first class standards. He feels that three more cameras in addition to the 24 that he has already rented
or bought will allow him to have his vision of a vast aerial combat between hundreds of fighter planes filmed to perfection.
He tries to wheedle the last three cameras out of everyone he knows, and he even leans on his Hollywood publicist to do the
same. His efforts are for naught as Hughes already has every available extra camera in use.
Spotting studio mogul Louis B. Mayer at a nightclub one evening, Hughes invites himself over for an introduction and a
soon to be proffered request for those additional cameras. Mayer casually remarks to an acquaintance that this is the guy
that is burning up all that money out in the desert. Mayer turns him down as he doesn't need any more competition and remarks
to a friend as Hughes walks away that he will soon be broke and on his way back to Texas.
Hughes is not at all happy with the takes and he suddenly understands why. The planes lose all sense of proportionality
when filmed against the clear blue sky for which Southern California is famous. After all, this is desert country. Hughes
hires a weather man on the spot for double his previous salary and then instructs him to scour the state for the next cloudy
day. Meanwhile the hundreds of planes and their pilots sit and wait at the cost of some $25,000 per day.
Eventually clouds do appear over a park at some distance, but no matter, as Hughes rushes all his planes and cameras north
to the site to finish the shooting of his aerial combats for the movie. Then it's all "in the can," as they say
in Hollywood, and Hughes takes the film stock in for editing into a final cut of "Hell's Angels." Rumor has it that
this movie has consumed more film footage than any film in history, but this is of no consequence to Hughes, who is always
the perfectionist.
During the editing process, Hughes sees Eddie Cantor sing in the first "Talkie," "The Jazz Singer,"
and he quickly realizes that this will be the wave of the future. Not only a perfectionist, but also a visionary, Hughes
stops everything and pulls all his actors in for sound takes so that he can issue his film as one of the first of these new
fangled talking movies.
Rumor has it that Hughes spent more than $4 million dollars of his own money in the production of "Hell's Angels,"
and everyone in Hollywood is convinced that the movie will be a flop and that Hughes will be financially ruined for this effort.
However, after the glittering New York premiere with Howard Hughes escorting movie legend Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani) to the
sounds of flash bulbs popping and paparazzi everywhere, the public falls in love with this movie and it goes on to great success.
Howard Hughes ends up more than recouping his investment.
During the filming of "Hell's Angels," Howard Hughes meets two critically important people, both of whom will
become his lifelong friends and confidantes. The first is Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), whom Hughes hires as his business
manager for, once again, twice his former salary. Dietrich remained loyal to Hughes' interests for the rest of his career
and was dependable for milking that last million or so dollars out of Hughes' business empire so that the project of the moment
may be completed in first class style for this world class visionary.
While Howard Hughes romanced and loved many of the Hollywood stars and near stars throughout his early years, it was Katherine
Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) who remained his closest friend as the two had so much in common. Both were smart, straightforward,
competitive, and athletic. Hughes loved to play golf with Hepburn as she was nearly his equal. He admired her honesty, her
openness, and her spirit of adventure.
Hepburn was always ready for a new challenge, and Hughes satisfied this spirit by taking her up on many of his rides in
the planes that he built and flew. For her part, Hepburn, like Hughes, was an individualist in a conformist town and she warned
Hughes about getting too close to the power structure there. It was during or shortly after this period where she became "box
office poison" and didn't receive any movie offers for years until she bought the movie rights to "The Philadelphia
Story" and came roaring back once again as a star when this movie soared at the box office.
Finally, Hughes admired the fact that Hepburn was a cleanliness freak who reportedly showered six times a day to keep
her body fresh and clean smelling. This was at a time when Hughes' own phobias against dirt and germs were slowly beginning
to manifest themselves after his having survived one epidemic after another while living in Houston as a child.
Hughes maintained one foot in Hollywood during the Thirties, but his focus began to shift to airplanes with the establishment
of the Hughes Aircraft Company, a Los Angeles based corporation. He designed airplanes and built them and also bought them
when he found another aircraft that met his exacting standards and vision. He began to buy up shares of Trans World Air on
the sly when that company began to falter and soon became its controlling shareholder.
World War Two offered a bonanza of government contracts for weapons armaments and airplanes and Hughes was in the thick
of the competition for government largesse with his brilliantly conceived and designed planes, all of which he first flew
himself as a test pilot. The thrill of that first flight always captivated Hughes' spirit, often to the point of danger as
he flew too far out to return to the test field before running our of fuel.
Test airplanes were not usually filled to the brim with fuel as there was not always the certainty of their remaining
airborne, and frequent crashes, of which Hughes was involved in more than a few, necessitated a smaller than normal fuel supply
to detract from the danger of the pilot landing safely but then dying in the ensuing fire. One spectacularly horrific crash
into an industrial complex near a golf course left Hughes critically injured with burns over 70% of his body.
In those days airplanes were a luxury means of transportation available only to a few. Furthermore, they had short flight
ranges of less than a thousand miles without a stop for refueling. The king of the long haul airlines in those days was Juan
Trippe (Alec Baldwin), who commandeered Pan American Airways, the only airline with the license to fly international flights,
mostly to South America. At the time there had not yet been built an airplane with the capability to fly across the Atlantic
to Europe.
Hughes happened upon a brilliantly designed airplane with a flight range of 3,000 miles and immediately bought the first
40 planes to come out of production with $18 million dollars of his own personal funds as Trans World was too broke to make
this purchase. He realized that this flight range would allow the first truly international flights from New York City to
Newfoundland to Ireland to Paris, and he wanted to sew up the supply of planes for the next several years in order to keep
Trippe's Pan American out of this new playing field.
This act on his part put him directly in Trippe's gun sights, and the two would become bitter enemies from then on. Trippe
later went to Congress and tried to have the Senator "in his pocket," Senator Ralph Owen (Alan Alda) of Maine, pass
a bill legalizing his monopoly on foreign flights. Hughes would later become even more famous for his televised testimony
before one of Senator Owen's committees.
Hughes was also in the gun sights of another organization, the Hollywood Decency Board, when he tried to issue his film,
"The Outlaw," featuring the well endowed Jane Russell sporting a Hughes' designed brassiere specially built to amplify
her already magnificent cleavage. The film was released only after a personal appearance by Hughes and the display of photo
boards showing that other actresses of the era with an "equal number of inches of décolletage" in films that had
earlier been approved by this same Board, so the bar for display of cleavage had already been lowered, as it were, by them.
Much like the paranoid mathematician, John Forbes Nash, Jr., in the movie, "A Beautiful Mind," Hughes had inner
demons of his own to battle as the onset of mental instability left him more and more incapacitated for any kind of a normal
life. He gradually retreated into his own little hermetically sealed world left alone in darkened rooms filled with discarded
tissue paper as he tried to fight off his paranoia over germs and disease.
They say that there is a narrow line between genius and madness. Howard Hughes was a sterling example of this.
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