When billionaire Howard Hughes, famous aviator and movie producer, died in testate in 1976, thousands of frauds claimed to be his heir. Gas pump jockey Melvin Dummar set forth the most prevalent scheme. A hand-written will had been mysteriously delivered to the Mormon Church in Utah where Dummar operated a gas station. The will left $150 million of Hughes’ billion-dollar state to Dummar. Dummar claimed that in 1968 he picked up a confused old man who claimed to be Hughes in the Nevada desert. He drove the man to Las Vegas, and gave him all his spare change. Dummar found himself under huge scrutiny, and the courts later found that Dummar had most likely forged the will.
Good Samaritan or charlatan, Dummar’s story inspired a liberal interpretation of his story. Written by Bo Goldman (Scent of A Woman) and directed by Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs), Melvin and Howard is the story of a blue-collar worker who dreams of winning it big. He relies on chance and fortune and never benefits from his successes for long. He can’t keep a good job, lives in a trailer, and can’t afford to pay for what he buys. When his car is repossessed, his wife’s defeated look tells us this isn’t the first time.
Although Dummar, played by Paul Le Mat, seems to be a big loser he’s also extremely likable. He’s the everyday underdog. He enjoys the small things in life like singing the song he wrote, “Santa’s Souped Up Sleigh.” He loves his daughter and wife Lynda (Mary Steenburgen), and fights for what he believes. When it looks like his boss will take away his distinction as Milkman of the Month and the subsequent award of a free television set, Dummar puts his fist down. “That’s for my wife and my kid,” he shouts, “and I’m gonna be Milkman of the Month.”
As a story about two men, eccentric in their own way, Melvin and Howard is sweet. When they delight in the smell of greasewood and sage after rainfall in the desert, it’s easy to see their mutual respect. Le Mat has an uncomplicated and sympathetic quality that makes him perfect as the humble Dummar and Jason Robards is enigmatic and cantankerous as Hughes. Although Robards’ appearance in the film is brief, he is unforgettable. Steenburgen, too, is whimsical as go-go girl Lynda. She’s bubbly, loving and tenacious, and she won an Oscar for her work.
Demme and Goldman, who won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, effect an incredible job of telling Dummar’s fable that is still refreshing decades later. From the forgery of Hughes’ handwriting in the title credits to the one-shot scene where Dummar and Hughes meet, the story is appropriately simple and sincere. The film offers optimism and earnestness, and makes you believe that Melvin Dummar really deserved to be heir to the Hughes fortune.
