Nevada desert, 1 9 6 7. While driving his motorcycle wildly, millionaire Howard Hughes crashes and falls on the ground. During the night, he is found and picked up by milkman Melvin Dummar in his truck. Hughes refuses to go to a hospital and insists to be left in Las Vegas. Melvin returns to his home, only to find out his wife Lynda is leaving him, sending their daughter away so she can work in a strip club. Eventually, Lynda returns to Melvin and they reconcile and she gets pregnant again. She wins a large sum of money on a quiz show, they move to a new house, but he spends a lot of money on buying himself a Cadilac and a boat, so she leaves him, angry that he is a loser. Melvin marries Bonnie and they move to Utah to work at a gas station. One day, a man leaves a note and disappers. The note mentions Hughes' last will which left Melvin million of dollars. The media frenzy engulfs Melvin's home, but a court dismisses the authenticity of the will.
Jonathan Demme's 6th feature length film is a movie interpretation of the Melvin Dummar case, a man claiming he picked up Howard Hughes, and that he found a last will of the millionaire years later in which he was left with a fortune. The trouble is, this stuff is not very cinematic. It is appropriate for a short film, but more dubious as a feature. "Melvin and Howard" starts off intruiging, since the down-on-his-luck protagonist Melvin accidentally picks up an injured bum in the desert (Jason Robards) who claims he is Hughes. Demme breaks several movie rules here, since their dialogue in the truck lasts for 15 minutes, which is refreshing structure-wise, but sadly, their lines are only lukewarm and rather uninspired. After that, the character of Hughes disappears, and the movie wastes an hour of its running time by just showing Melvin's mundane life routine, while the last will segment appears too late, only some 20 minutes before the end of the film. One wishes for Hughes' return, since Robards is by far the most charismatic actor in the film, but he never does, and is only shown again in the epilogue, which is just an unshown flashback from the opening act, in which Hughes drives the truck while Melvin rests during the drive. Screenwriter Bo Goldman has difficulties deciphering a coherent storyline out of this scarce anecdote. Demme uses the story to contemplate on the working class in America, always in danger of losing their job, not having enough money, or being stuck feeling as if they are living below their possibilities. A small scene stealer is the wonderful Mary Steenburgen as Melvin's wife Lynda, who is amusing in the sequence where she does a hilariously cartoonish dance in a TV game show. There are good moments here, but the source material seems like a wild goose chase. One wishes that Hughes had appeared again and contacted Melvin, but this never happened, indicating how sometimes reality is indeed too inhibiting for movie imaginations.
Grade:++
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