Melvin and Howard **** (1980, Paul LeMat, Jason Robards Jr, Mary Steenburgen) – Classic Movie Review 5350

Bo Goldman received two Academy Awards for his screenplays of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Melvin and Howard (1980). 

Director Jonathan Demme’s highly delightful, double Oscar-winning 1980 comedy film Melvin and Howard is one of this remarkable film-maker’s finest movies. This possibly true story is extremely well played, cleverly written, expertly handled and most satisfying.

Paul LeMat stars as factory worker and utter loser Melvin E Dummar, who gives real-life US industrialist and eccentric Howard Hughes (Jason Robards Jr) a lift in his car.

Later nobody will believe Dummar when he tells them that Hughes has left him most of his squillions – actually $156 million – in his Mormon will.

Mary Steenbergen won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Dummar’s unfortunate wife, who has absurd dreams of showbiz, and Bo Goldman’s screenplay won another Oscar, for Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen. Jason Robards Jr was nominated as Best Supporting Actor.

Also in the cast are Elizabeth Cheshire, Michael J Pollard, Gloria Grahame, Pamela Reed, Dabney Coleman, Jack Kehoe, Martine Beswick and Charles Napier.

Hughes (1905-76) built a plane industry, became a flier himself, bought RKO studios, had well-publicised affairs with various film stars, apparently of both sexes, and at the end of his life became a sad, long-haired recluse. His story is told in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004) and Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply (2016).

The story is inspired by real-life Utah service station owner Melvin Earl Dummar, listed as the beneficiary of $156 million in a will allegedly handwritten by Howard Hughes and discovered in the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.

The real Dummar appears at a bus station.

Jonathan Demme (February 22, 1944 – April 26, 2017).

Bo Goldman, who won two Academy Awards for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Melvin and Howard, died on July 25, 2023, aged 90. He also wrote The Rose (1979), Shoot the Moon (1982), Scent of a Woman (1992), and Meet Joe Black (1998).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 5,350

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