A Jumble, just like its subject - Howierd Hughes

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2005)

I would not have seen this film if my wife had not bought it on the sly. My prejudice is based on a personal bias against the Star, the person (Hughes) represented, the State where our man was born, and the Director. Armed with this sort of informed doubt, I am seldom burdened with a dud movie. We have a large collection of DVD releases, a small house, and limited storage space. Any addition to the collection has to be good enough to bump some earlier selection out to the Thrift Store shelves. In other words, to earn a place on our shelf, a film has to be a convincing WINNER and BETTER than something else already there. So, it was with misgivings that I agreed to sit through "The Aviator". So, I did. My wife loved it (or, the Kate Hepburn part). I hated it, all of it.
It would have been sufficient for the director to simply state that "HH" inherited much more money than he deserved and got on with the business of playing with it. And, with anything else that came his way. The ending could have come next but that was somewhere in the muddle (er, middle) just before "HH" leaped out of bed and raced to the Government Hearings to protect his good name. Our man was really upset when he divined somehow that he was not believed and that made him a liar! ("...I am not, nor I have been, A LIAR!...") Hmm, reminds me of Nixon telling us he was not a crook. Onward.
(In fairness, "HH" was quoted as saying that other companies had signed contracts to deliver defensive weapons that became obsolete with the end of World War II. Furthermore, those companies had not delivered unwanted weapons. How short sighted he was - we still see some of those aircraft flying around to this day. We could use some more of them, too. Forest fires, don't you know?) Well, "HH" hocked the farm to get TWA (Teeny Weenie Airlines?) off the ground. This was interesting. It seems that there really was a bad guy after all. The U.S. Government. NO! That was Juan Trippe, president of Pan American Airways. All that fellow wanted was a monopoly of passenger business everywhere. Sheese! Another Henry Ford/John Rockefeller. "HH" resented that fellow.
I grew up about 3 miles from the Hughes Aircraft factory over near Loyola College; I heard about the "Spruce Goose" but never had a glimpse of it - did not see it moved by truck - did not see it taxi and do wind sprints out in the Harbor - Saw the huge hangar where it sat for decades. I never even got into the geodesic tomb built for it in later years. - Just heard a lot about it. I do remember that "HH" and a crew of dozens (3 to 5 per engine) drove it out into the Harbor and ran it back and forth and that he actually lifted it out of the water for a short run. Local press derided him for not getting it up further - we were all disappointed. Not in the movie, however. There he gooooooooeeeeesssssss!!!!!! Yay! I finally caught up with it in McMinnville, Oregon in 1995. It was sitting in a parking lot, not assembled yet. Phooey. ("HH" also built a huge helicopter for some reason.) Where were we? Oh yes, "The Aviator". The special scenes showing the crash of the TurboProp showed the right wing slicing through the wall of a house that must have been a thousand feet long and all built from rice paper. Yes, "HH" was lucky. And obnoxious. The film did nothing to correct our impressions of him. As it turned out, "HH" was just another shark in the Hollywood Pool. At least his aircraft were interesting.