RIP, continued.

Anthony Harvey (1930-2917), aged 87. Harvey directed one of our perennial favourites THE LION IN WINTER in 1968, I remember seeing it at the old Odeon Haymarkt in London, where the sight of Queen Eleanor arriving at Chinon by boat was terrific on the large screen. Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole of course had huge success here, with another Oscar for Kate, and it also featured that rising talent Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, John Castle and Jane Merrow (whom I had met a few years previously). John Barry's faux-medieval score and the authentic settings were major pluses too. We will be seeing it again this christmas. It proved to be Harvey's biggest hit, though he worked with Hepburn twice more, and other director credits included THERE MY BE GIANTS and DUTCHMAN. He had also been editor on such films as Kubrick's LOLITA, and DR STRANGELOVE, THE WHISPERERS, THE MILLIONAIRESS, THE L-SHAPED ROOM and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD plus THE ANGRY SILENCE and I'M ALRIGHT JACK. 
Below: Harvey with Hepburn and Robert Helpmann. 

Shashi Kapoor (1938-2017) aged 79. One of Bollywood's most recognisable, photogenic stars throughout the 60s and 70s.  His breakthrough role was in the 1963 Merchant-Ivory film THE HOUSEHOLDER, and then in their SHAKESPEARE WALLAH, BOMBAY TALKIE and HEAT AND DUST. Other international films include PRETTY POLLY in 1969 and SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID in 1987, as well as his many Indian films in the booming Bollywood film industry. He was married to Jennifer Kendal, sister of Felicity, whose parents toured India with their Shakespeare productions.

Christine Keeler (1942-2017) aged 75. English model and showgirl, at the heart of the Profumo scandal in 1963 (I was 17 at the time and remember reading avidly about it.  The story is too well known to rehash here, but she was involved with the Minister for Defence John Profumo,  as well as  Soviet spy (at the  height of the Cold War) as well as society osteopath Stephen Ward. Profumo lied about his involvement with her in the House of Commons and discredited the Macmillan government. Her later life was dogged by the scandal. It was a high price to pay for being a symbol of the Swinging Sixties. 

Karin Dor (1938-2017) age 79. Another of the Eorobabes who departed this year, Karin had a substantial career in European films. I know her best from Hitchcock's TOPAZ in 1969, where she is stunning as the Cuban who is helping the Americans
. Hitch gives her a perfect death scene as she is shot with that purple dress billowing out around her as she falls.  She was also an early Bond girl in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE in '67. 

Suzanna Leigh (1945-2017), aged 72. Another of those decorative British blondes popular in the mis-60s: she was the posh one in THE PLEASURE GIRLS (1965) and co-starred with Elvis in PAADISE HAWAIIAN STYLE, and in BOEING, BOEING in '66 with Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis - we did not feel the need to see that. Soon it was stinkers like THE DEADLY BEES, THE LOST CONTINENT, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE and various tv series. 

Keith Chegwin (1957-2017) aged 60. Another British TV stalwart 'Cheggers' worked mainly in childens' television and morning shows, and seemed unfailingly popular. 

Weekend treats ..... six from that fab year 1962

It should be in widescreen reallv....

Festive cheer 2

Two treats lined up for holiday viewing: two Katharine Hepburn movies ideal for this time of year. THE LION IN WINTER, now spruced up in a new edition with lots of features, is an ideal Christmas film and is of course a feast of acting with Hepburn and OToole firing on all cylinders as Henry II and his warring brood celebrate Christmas at Chinon in 1183, and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine is left out of prison for the holidays. Anthony Harvey crafts a solid entertainment from James Goldman's play, and John Barry's faux medieval score is one of his best. It looks great too. I had already met Jane Merrow (label) and seen Timothy Dalton on the stage, so knew how good they were, and John Castle was fresh from BLOW-UP.
It was marvellous seeing it for the first time on the widescreen of the old Odeon Haymarket back in 1968, I still have the souvenir brochure. Hepburn dazzled us then.

DESK SET from 1957 is a more recent discovery, and may be my favourite Tracy-Hepburn, but has that long central act at the office christmas party, where Kate, splendid in red, does a delicious tipsy scene with Joan Blondell, Tracy is fun for a change, and Kate even sings "Night and Day"! (More on DESK SET at Kate label). 

It may also be time to have another look at CAROL, taking us back to that Christmas in 1950s New York, when Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara meet at the department store ......

I loved her in the movies

Another enjoyable addtion to the Christmas gift list is Robert Wagner's new book I LOVED HER IN THE MOVIES, his recollections of all the great actresses he knew and worked with, decade by decade, starting with the 1930s.

Whatever one thinks of Wagner as an actor, he is fairly lightweight and agreeable (insufferable movie snob Martin will probably think he should be a shoe salesman too, like his judgement on Kerwin Matthews) and, like Dirk Bogarde in England, Wagner knew everyone (he and Natalie visited the Bogardes in the South of France on one of their European trips). Unlike his contemporaries Jeff or Tab Hunter, Wagner was a Hollywood kid, growing up there - he went to school with Norma Shearer's son, so knew Norma well in her later retired years, and he dated Gloria Swanson's daughter, and writes affectionately about Gloria, she was not like Norma Desmond at all.

We also get affectionate tributes and stories on Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Crawford, Davis (Natalie played her young daughter in THE STAR and she and Wagner were friends for a long time), Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Katharine Hepburn (whom he knew through friendship with Spencer Tracy with whom he co-starred twice), Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur. He certainly moved in the right circles! 

There's also Lana Turner, Greer Garson, Susan Hayward (very helpful to the novice actor on WITH A SONG IN MY HEART, left), Ida Lupino, Jennifer Jones, Claire Trevor, Betty Grable, Ann Sheridan, Joan Blondell, Lucille Ball, Linda Darnell and Gene Tierney, the impossible Betty Hutton, as well as characters like Thelma Ritter, Maureen Stapleton and Eve Arden. Wagner knows too how difficult it was for actresses to maintain long careers ...

The 1950s saw him pals with Doris and Debbie, the young Marilyn, Janet Leigh, June Allyson, Jean Peters, Joan Collins, Angie Dickinson, Debra Paget. He was at Romanoffs that famous 1957 night when Jayne Mansfield usurped Sophia Loren's debut (left) - he later played Loren's husband in De Sica's THE CONDEMNED OF ALTONA in 1962 and writes very affectionately about her, and also Capucine (Cappy) from THE PINK PANTHER, There were some difficult ladies too - Shelley Winters for one! 
Joanne Woodward and Glenn Close also come in for some respectful praise, and of course there's Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews and Natalie. 

Wagner, now in his mid-80s parlayed his looks into a long career on film and television. He was good enough for Olivier for his TV CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF in '76. Its always fun seeing him as PRINCE VALIANT in that wig! His first memoir PIECES OF MY HEART is an agreeable read about it all too. 
He was a 20th Century Fox boy and Natalie was a Warner Bros girl, so he got to know Jack Warner well too - and is hilarious about the abuse Warner heaped on Judy Garland (who would have been so ideal for GYPSY in 62 with Natalie), and he also recounts Vittorio De Sica's hilariously rude comment on Raquel Welch who was driving them mad with her delays on THE BIGGEST BUNDLE OF THEM ALL .... Star gossip does not get much better. As he says: "Movies and TV go on forever - only the delivery system changes ...".

Two favourites: Lee & Kate

Two of our favourite ladies here are Katharine Hepburn and Lee Remick, and thanks to Daryl for sending me these two stills from their 1973 film A DELICATE BALANCE. I have used them before (see sidebar for that cover of "Films In Review" magazine), but lovely to see them again. 

I never saw Hepburn in person but got to meet Remick in 1970, as detailed before at her label, and also saw her on stage in London in BUS STOP in 1975. 

The story I have told before is that in 1957 when Lee was starting out she was up for the negligible role of one of the office girls in Hepburn's DESK SET with Tracy (the role played by Dina Merrill in the film). Kate advised her to take small parts to get noticed, but Spencer told her to hold out for a better role, which she certainly got in Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD that year - what a debut. Five years later of course they are both up for Best Actress in 1962, and a decade later played mother and daughter in the film of Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE, rather ignored at the time, but a real acting treat now.  Paul Scofield is marvellous here too as is Kate Reid, and they do Albee's play justice. Its one of Tony Richardson's better later efforts. (He also directed Lee in the 1961 SANCTUARY, a rare one we tracked down some years ago, as per review).  

White Hunter Black Heart, 1990

A thinly fictionalized account of a legendary movie director, whose desire to hunt down an elephant turns into a grim situation with his movie crew in Africa.

The blurb states: "For a film of "excitement, wit and intelligence" (Rex Reed) the hunt ends here. As both star and director of WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, Clint Eastwood plays one of his most colourful roles and crafts one of the most acclaimed movies of his 45-year career.

He plays John Wilson, a brilliant driven film director (loosely based on legendary John Huston) determined to turn his new project in Africa into personal adventure hunting a wild elephant. Jeff Fahey, Marisa Berenson and George Dzundza co-star in this rugged, robust movie from the novel by co-screenwriter Peter Viertel, who accompanied Huston to Africa in 1950 to work on THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Filmed on location in Zimbabwe and London, WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART is a bold trek into the heart of adventure". 

Well they would say that I suppose, but there is no "loosely based" about it. Clint's character is meant to be Huston, and the film they are making is THE AFRICAN QUEEN, with Marisa Berenson a convincing Hepburn character (Bogie and Bacall - also on the location - are not as developed here). 

We were discussing THE AFRICAN QUEEN over at IMDB, which got me interested in this, which I had missed at the time, as indeed I had most of Eastwood's films, I just do not find him or his films interesting (apart from the early stuff like PLAY MISTY FOR ME or DIRTY HARRY). Viertel was a fascinating guy too, writer and Hollywood marverick, who married Deborah Kerr, and knew Huston, Hemingway etc. well, as per his fascinating memoir. (His mother Salka was an intimate of Garbo's). There is a strong British contingent here, with Timothy Spall, Alun Armstrong and Richard Warwick, and Fahey is a pleasing presence. Eastwood gets Huston's speech patterns and mannerisms off pat, so its a fascinating look at movie-making, but really anyone not familar with THE AFRICAN QUEEN or who these people were, would be totally at sea. The climax with the elephants is well handled too. Having seen Berenson recently on the stage, see label, it was interesting to see her again here and she too (like Blanchett) sketches a passable Kate. Hepburn's slim  memoir of making the film is a fascinating read too with great photographs. 
Huston returned to Africa in 1957 for another elephant saga, THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN, about saving elephants, not shooting them. 

Christmas treats

TV is awash at the moment with Christmas movies - glutinous, sentimental TV movies - there are even whole channels devoted to them. I ignore all these -we will always want to see IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE or MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET or even WHITE CHRISTMAS or MEET ME IN ST LOUIS (not a Christmas movie as such, as it covers all 4 seasons, but it does have that great Christmas song sung by Judy...). There are though one or two movies I discovered that are worth seeing, and starring some of our favourites here at The Projector.

I nominate CHRISTMAS EVE, starring Loretta Young and Trevor Howard, and THE GIFT OF LOVE: A CHRISTMAS STORY with Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury. And for a real movie, Spence and Kate in DESK SET (above) - which has a great long Christmas party scene. Roll them ...

Loretta was the great depression waif back in the 1930s and very prolific - 7 or 8 movies in 1933 alone. I love her in those Pre-Codes like MIDNIGHT MARY or the 1936 LADIES IN LOVE - as per revews at Loretta label. (The later Loretta became an Iron Butterfly and was less interesting). Here she is Amanda, a beautiful old lady in CHRISTMAS EVE, in 1986. Amanda is a wealthy widow at loggerheads with her banker son who is trying to remove her from control of the family firm as she persists in using real money to give to the poor and not tax-deducting it. Then it turns out Amada has a fatal illness [no sniggering at the back Martin Bradley!] with not much time left. When her doctor tells her, her reaction is "Well I never thought I was immortal". 
Her faithful butler is none other than Trevor Howard, also touching and frail here after his hell-raiser days. When she tells him of her condition and how he has to help her, as they go out every night helping the poor and homeless, is perfectly played by the two veterans. She decides to use her remaining time to re-unite her grandchildren with their father and bring the whole family together for Christmas Eve. Does it happen? It may sound gruesomely sentimental but it is anything but in the seasoned hands of veterans like Young and Howard and a good supporting cast. Directed by Stuart Cooper. Howard died 2 years later in 1988, aged 74 Young died aged 87 in 2000. 

Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury are paired again in the 1983 telefilm THE GIFT OF LOVE. (They were previously in THE LONG HOT SUMMER in 1958, and that 1964 Sondheim musical ANYONE CAN WHISTLE). 

After experiencing several stressful situations within a short time --including the failure of the family business and the loss of her mother-- Janet Broderick becomes ill. Falling into a deep sleep, she dreams of returning to her hometown, taking her children with her to meet her deceased loved ones. Perhaps, during a Christmas reunion with her beloved family, she will find the answer to coping with her troubles.

This is a glutinously sentimental story mainly in soft focus about a family facing hard times and the intervention perhaps of family ghosts... Lee is wonderfully attractive and fascinating as usual as the disillusioned wife whose mother Angela Lansbury dies after two scenes, but returns as Lee dreams most of the following with a visit to her old family home where mother and father and spinster aunt are all present. Its nicely resolved with her children and husband, and expertly put together by old hand Delbert Mann (MARTY, SEPARATE TABLES etc). It remains a superior telemovie though, we can watch Lee and Angela in anything. 

DESK SET is a pleasure now, as I posted here a year or so ago.. I like it a lot, maybe the best of the Tracy-Hepburns after WOMAN OF THE YEAR, ADAMS RIB, PAT & MIKE .... its from a talky play (by Phoebe and Henry Ephron) and the subject must have been topical back in the 50s - those new big computers coming in taking over office jobs. Like Fox's WOMAN'S WORLD it is also another great New York movie, and Kate and her office girls, led by Joan Blondell, are a great gang. Spence is amusing and droll too as they suspect he (and his new computer) is going to make them all redundant. Theres reams of dialogue, including that nice long scene on the cold office roof, and that one at Kate's apartment - another Apartment We Love - with its cosy fire, chairs and bookshelves. We want to live there!

Gig Young is Kate's on-off boyfriend - a task he previously played for Bette and Joan. There is a great long Christmas scene as the office party gets underway and Kate plays drunk nicely - she and Joan Blondell get nicely tipsy together, and Kate even sings "Night and Day". She is for once given a decent wardrobe of nice dresses and coats and looks great, particularly in that red coat and gloves.. DESK SET, directed by Fox regular Walter Lang, is a pleasure any time, and Leon Shamroy makes it look good. (As I mentioned before, the young Lee Remick was up for the small part played by Dina Merrill, as her first movie role, but she wisely opted for A FACE IN THE CROWD instead, making a sensational debut there). Its a Christmas treat, put it on. 

Valentines: Lets Not Make Love / Desk Set

One of our Sky channels here has been running Valentine's Day movies on one of its channels, so cue a lot of old favourites - I may be dropping in on MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING (if only for Rupert and "I Say A Little Prayer") and SHIRLEY VALENTINE again today.... but we saw LET'S MAKE LOVE and DESK SET once again a day or so ago.

Looking at LET'S MAKE LOVE (I grew up with it really) objectively now it is surely the worst of both Marilyn and Cukor. A leaden farce that would have sunk without trace if not for MM's few sparking moments. She is adorable doing Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" with those chorus boys and its one of her iconic moments, and a great Jack Cole number, plus her two with English crooner Frankie Vaughan: the title number and "Specialisation" where she is pure peaches and cream. The rest of the dull plot seems to take place in ugly wood-panelled offices as Montand (so great in French films, but all at sea here), Tony Randall, Wilfrid Hyde White go through acres of dull dialogue. Did they bring in guests like Bing, Gene and Milton to try to liven it up? 

I have seen LETS MAKE LOVE many times over the years, it has that odd spot in MM's canon - after SOME LIKE IT HOT and before THE MISFITS. Her looks and hairstyles vary from scene to scene. Most of her later films were made away from Fox, where she was still an indendured servant. It is really the last of her Fox films - would the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE be any better? - at least we have the fragments. Marilyn was slim and lovely by then in 1962 facing that new decade, but for whatever reason, she did not linger. I always felt Cukor was not the right director for her, he did not have much empathy with her and his comments were not kind - he was used to tough dames like Hepburn and Crawford. 

Staying with Fox and Hepburn, DESK SET is a pleasure now. I like it a lot, maybe the best of the Tracy-Hepburns after WOMAN OF THE YEAR, ADAMS RIB, PAT & MIKE .... its from a talky play (by Phoebe and Henry Ephron) and the subject must have been topical back in the 50s - those new big computers coming in taking over office jobs. It is also another great New York movie, and Kate and her office girls, led by Joan Blondell, are a great gang. Spence is amusing and droll too as they suspect he (and his new computer ) is going to make them all redundant. Theres reams of dialogue, including that nice long scene on the cold office roof, and that one at Kate's apartment - another Apartment We Love - with its cosy fire, chairs and bookshelves. We want to live there!  - click on this image below to enlarge and see the detail ...

Gig Young of course is Kate's on-off boyfriend - a task he previously played for Bette and Joan. There is a great Christmas scene as the office party gets underway and Kate plays drunk nicely. She is for once given a decent wardrobe of nice dresses and coats and looks great. DESK SET, directed by Fox regular Walter Lang, is a pleasure any time, and Leon Shamroy makes it look good. Its almost up there with her other '50s hit SUMMERTIME! Then after that dreadful Bob Hope film she went on to SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER ...

Young actress Lee Remick was right to turn down the nothing part played by Dina Merrill (in DESK SET) as her debut; it would have done nothing for her, and (as advised by Spencer, see Remick label) decided to wait for a better role to make her debut, as she did that year with Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD - she certainly got noticed there! By 1962, five years later, she was competing with Kate for the Best Actress Oscar and announced as replacing Marilyn in SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE! (and Montand was also incomprehensible with her in SANCTUARY in '61).

Kate and Maggie at the BFI

The British Film Institute is now doing a two part retrospective on Katharine Hepburn during February and March, but in fact are showing about half of her output - 27 titles out of 52!  
The Maggie Smith two-parter was about similar, but included all her main items (apart from DEATH ON THE NILE), 
but then, apart from her acknowledged classics, Smith did a lot of lesser stuff one does not need to see now (KEEPING MUM anyone? or that feeble 2012 QUARTET). The BFI also showed the contents of that MAGGIE SMITH AT THE BBC boxset: their "Plays of the Month" THE MILLIONAIRESS, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (plus MEMENTO MORI) and those 1960s interviews with her and Kenneth Williams. Great to see again her sparring with Rex Harrison, Burton, Rod Taylor, and working for Susan Hayward (THE HONEYPOT, left) like she did with Bette, below, and her star turns in ROOM WITH A VIEW, THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE etc - as per reviews at Smith label. 

The Hepburn retro covers all the usual main titles, ignoring her lesser seen ones now - surely her 1944 DRAGON SEED where she plays an Eurasian is worth discovering now? (but as my pal Daryl says "There are movies that are better forgotten") - review of it at Hepburn label. But none of her offbeat choices in the '70s: the flop MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT, Cacoyannis's THE TROJAN WOMEN in 1971, or A DELICATE BALANCE where she is teamed with Scofield in Edward Albee in '73; and none of her later work after ON GOLDEN POND - do we really need to see that again or GUESS WHO'S .... I like some of her later TV films - that Cukor THE CORN IS GREEN set in Wales, in 1978 - or the amusing LAURA LANSING SLEPT HERE; still, it may be nice to go see SUMMERTIME and THE LION IN WINTER on the big screen again, and as for the extended run of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, I just don't like it that much! 

Sunday treats

What a busy day - "The Sunday Times" has "100 Soundtracks to Love" - fascinating, but does not include my favourite five: BLOW-UP, UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, AMERICAN GIGOLO, CLEOPATRA or THE LION IN WINTER  (Kate Hepburn, below).... 

The Times also has a hilariously awful interview with Aretha Franklin (to plug her new album, see Aretha label) where it is obvious Aretha does want to to be there or do the interview .... this is compulsive stuff for Aretha fans here in England, as we do not get enough of her over here now.

Then there was that equally fascinating interview with Maggie Smith yesterday, as per post below, and now that Sophia Loren's book is out, there are some - yes, that word again - fascinating reviews plus a new interview she granted in Geneva to Chrissy Iley of The Sunday Telegraph .... 

Then we looked at THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT 3, recorded from yesterday, with some choice moments like Dolores Gray doing our favourite from IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER: "Thanks a lot, but no thanks" (where she has a man "who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined") - and the juxtaposition of Joan Crawford in that lurid outfit and "tropical makeup" miming to India Adams' vocal for "Two Faced Woman" in TORCH SONG - which Cyd Charisse (those legs!) had also done for THE BANDWAGON, but that number was cut from the film. Both were in 1953 - at least Joan got to immortalise it, but Cyd's is nifty too. See them both here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LMUJtcID5c

End of summer repeats: Millie, Pulp Fiction, Aviator ...

"In the Ritz elevator you just go up and down"

It seems like the end of summer here in the UK, as we face our second day of incessant rain, washing out a bank holiday yesterday, and much cooler weather - we were moaning about the heatwave the other week, but the nice thing about UK weather is that it changes all the time .... it may be a warm September and late autumn ... meanwhile, those tv repeats keep coming. It was bliss to chillax once again yesterday, with THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, 

a favourite musical ever since my best friend Stanley and I saw it during its first run, at the old (then new) Odeon in St Martins Lane, London, in 1967 - as per my other reports on it here .... its certainly my favourite Julie Andrews film, I love the look of it, the great pastiche of the 1920s, Julie, Mary Tyler Moore, Bea Lillie as Mrs Meers with all those great lines we loved and repeated all the time ("Just a restless girl", "sad to be all along in the world", "please go, enjoy yourself", "I bet its juicy" etc). and then there is Carol Channing as jazz-baby Muzzy etc. The guys are fun too - John Gavin as Trevor Graydon guying himself and cute young James Fox's Jimmy (now a senior actor here, good to see him last year at the 50th anniversary screening of THE SERVANT - as per my posts on that - Fox label) as he launches the friendship dance into doing "The Tapioca" or in drag to trap white slaver Mrs Meers who thinks he will be alright for "a dark corner of the late shift" ..... George Roy Hill directs it all with a sure touch, its produced by Ross Hunter, and lensed by the great Russell Metty (THE MISFITS etc) and then theres Elmer Bernstein and Andre Previn sorting out the score and the songs ... whats not to love?

All I need to say about PULP FICTION is: was it really 20 years ago it blew us away - still does now, as does INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and KILL BILL .... they repay frequent (or at least annual) re-visits. 

THE AVIATOR, 2004. I liked Scorsese’s Howard Hughes film a lot more now than I did back in 2004. One is bowled over by so many things, not least Cate Blanchett’s vivid cartoon portrayal of Katharine Hepburn – its audacious, but it works (Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner certainly doesn’t). Add in Jude Law for a minute or two as Errol Flynn and the film soars, just like Hughes does in his plane as takes Hepburn airborne in his plane and lets her fly it. Scorsese only shows us Hughes from the 1920s to the 1940s, with all that HELLS ANGELS movie-making, with Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani). Leonardo Di Caprio captures the spendthrift madness of Hughes in his early prime, as he spends, spends and spends more to get his vision on screen. 

Nobody it seems can say no to him, as we watch his staff and companions like Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), and later his deadly foes like Alec Baldwin as Juan Trippe, CEO of Pan-American Airways, and Alan Alda as that very devious, corrupt politician. 
The basic facts about Hughes are present and correct, his unstoppable will and inner demons, including that Spruce Goose saga, and having starlets squirreled away all over town, as we see his growing obsession and OCD about health and germs and how he cannot open that washroom door … It is all vivid film-making, as the running time flies by, with Scorsese in his element, and all those fantastic planes and amazing set-pieces, and it has set me up to finally put on THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. It makes one wonder what Scorsese’s proposed Sinatra biopic would be like.