All that money and so many errors

Rating: 5/10 (5 April 2005)

I loved itI hated it! It was truly epic in the classic sense of film-making; no expense was spared to recreate the grandeur and lushness of the world in which Howard Hughes lived. Huge amounts of money were spent to insure historical accurateness. So what went wrong???
Anachronisms: Why would anyone in 1927 have wished for a date with Theda Bara? (Bara was at her prime between 1915 and 1919, and by 1927 she was a has-been in her early 40s!) Why would a posh nightclub feature a five year old song like "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise"? Why was there no washroom attendant in either lavatory scene? Did you catch the RED stop sign in the 1947 "newsreel"? Hughes and Hepburn evidently meet in 1935, and Kate mentions that she is "box office poison"; but this didn't come till after the making of "Holiday" in 1938, when she took a two-year break from making films. When Kate and Howard are dining at the Cocoanut Grove, circa 1935-36, the band plays & sings the 1930 Paul Whiteman arrangement of "Happy Feet"! Again, after the success of the Hercules flight in 1947, the soundtrack features Glenn Miller's 1939 recording of "Moonlight Serenade." And did people in 1927 actually do the "good news/bad news" routine? (I think this originated in the 1970s.) There's more
Editing: I was totally distracted by the dish of ice cream in the "ice cream" scene. First Miss Domergue's hands are in her lap, and flash, there's a spoon in her hand, and flash again, it's the first view, and then back to the spoon. And when Hughes takes the dish away from her, the cherry is on top, then it's on the side, and now it's on the top again! After the Hercules flight, Hughes has one of his "episodes," and assistants rush him outside. There's a great flourish as the tent door flap is drawn closed, but we look again and it's wide open. Again, there's more
Acting: A friend commented that Alec Baldwin can play no one other than Alec Baldwin. And DiCaprio is totally unconvincing as a captain of industry! He hardly ages, even though there's a 20 year time span, While the mustache adds a little age, he still has the voice and look of a boy, even though by now Hughes is in his 40s!!
By the way, what was with the blue grass and trees on the golf course?