BBBB
(out of 5)
Driving through the Nevada desert in the middle of the night, a down on his luck Melvin Dummar (Paul Le Mat) picks up a penniless old man (Jason Robards) and gives him a lift into Las Vegas. He laughs when Robards tells him that he is millionaire Howard Hughes and insists he was happy to give him the ride anyway, but is quite surprised when Hughes dies and leaves a huge fortune to Dummar in his will. Having spent years feeling like a loser who couldn’t keep a job down for long, Dummar has now hit the jackpot, but the pot of gold remains beyond his grasp when Hughes’s estate lawyers decide the will to be a fraud and the terms within it unacceptable. This excellent meditation on the American Dream and its unavailability to those are deemed undeserving is an insightful character study that benefits from some excellent performances. Mary Steenburgen makes a huge splash with her adorable, Oscar-winning performance as Dummar’s first wife, while Pamela Reed lends terrific support as his second. Demme has made a career out of films about people who are sympathetic no matter what their situation; here he does the trick by making a film based on fact that isn’t concerned with the validity of the story (no one really knows if Dummar’s claim about giving Hughes a ride is actually true) but with the effect it has on this ordinary Joe’s completely extraordinary life.
USA, 1980
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Screenplay by Bo Goldman
Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto
Produced by Art Linson, Don Phillips
Music by Bruce Langhorne
Production Design by Toby Carr Rafelson
Costume Design by Eddie Marks, Nancy McArdle
Film Editing by Craig McKay
Cast Tags: Antony Alda, Bo Goldman, Brendan Kelly, Charlene Holt, Charles Horden, Charles Napier, Cheryl Smith, Chip Taylor, Dabney Coleman, Danny Dark, Danny Tucker, Darrell Devlin, Deborah Ann Klein, Denise Galik, Elise Hudson, Elizabeth Cheshire, Garrie Kelly, Gary Goetzman, Gene Borkan, Gloria Grahame, Hal Marshall, Herbie Faye, Jack Kehoe, Jack Verbois, James Lyle Strong, Janice King, Jason Ball, Jason Robards, John Glover, John Levin, John Thundercloud, Joseph Ragno, Joseph Walker Jr., Kathleen Sullivan, Lesley Margret Burton, Linda Cardoso, Marguerite Baierski, Martine Beswick, Mary Steenburgen, Melissa Prophet, Melissa Williams, Melvin E. Dummar, Michael J. Pollard, Naida Reynolds, Pamela Reed, Paul Le Mat, Rick Lenz, Rob Reece, Robert Ridgely, Robert Wentz, Shirley Washington, Sonny Carl Davis, Susan Peretz, Theodora Thomas, Wendy Lee Couch
Academy Awards: 1980
Boston Film Critics Awards: 1980
Golden Globe Awards: 1980
Los Angeles Film Critics: 1980
National Board Of Review Awards: 1980
National Society of Film Critics Awards: 1980
New York Film Critics Awards: 1980
Venice Film Festival: 1980
Writers Guild Awards: 1980
