Melvin and Howard
Melvin and Howard is a 1980 American comedydrama film directed by Jonathan Demme. The screenplay by Bo Goldman was inspired by reallife Utah service station owner Melvin Dummar, who was listed as the beneficiary of USD156 million in a will allegedly handwritten by Howard Hughes that was discovered in the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints in Salt Lake City. A novelization of Goldmans script later was written by George Gipe.
In the opening scene, Howard Hughes loses control of and crashes his motorcycle in the Nevada desert. That night, hes discovered lying on the side of a stretch of U.S. Highway 95 where Melvin Dummar stops his pickup truck so he can relieve himself. The disheveled stranger, refusing to allow the Good Samaritan to take him for medical help, asks him to drive him to Las Vegas. En route, the two engage in stilted conversation until Dummar cajoles his passenger into joining him in singing a Christmas song he wrote. Hughes then suggests they sing his favorite song Bye Bye Blackbird, and they do. The man warms up to his rescuer and before hes dropped off at the Desert Inn which Hughes owns and therein resides, he identifies himself as the reclusive billionaire.Most of the remainder of the film focuses on Melvins scattered, upanddown life, his spendthrift, trustinluck nature, his rocky marital life with first wife Lynda, and his more stable relationship with second wife Bonnie. Lynda leaves him and their daughter to dance in a sleazy strip club, but eventually returns, but she remains frustrated by her husbands futile efforts to achieve the American dream. Melvin convinces her to appear on Easy Street, a game show hybrid of The Gong Show and Lets Make a Deal, and although her tapdancing initially is booed by the audience, she wins them over and nabs the top prize of living room furniture, a piano, and 10,000 cash. ........
Source: Wikipedia
