After all, how could any film compete with the whirlwind excitement of his own life? He sold the studio in 1955 so that he could focus on aviation. But most of the films with his name on them were little more than vehicles for Russell and various girlfriends. He then bought RKO Pictures, making him the first person to be the sole owner of a Hollywood studio. Unlike Hell’s Angels, The Outlaw was derided by critics, but Hughes had done such an effective job of marketing Russell’s figure and the film’s salaciousness that it, too, became a hit. After he took over directing duties from Howard Hawks, he made his priorities clear: “We’re not getting enough production out of Jane’s breasts.” Determined to furnish Russell with a push-up bra which wouldn’t be visible through her blouse, he declared, “This is really just a very simple engineering problem.” Russell agreed, but refused to wear the “absolutely ridiculous-looking” contraption he designed. It would be long forgotten if Hughes hadn’t discovered its curvaceous leading lady, Jane Russell. Then came The Outlaw, a stagey western in which Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid argue interminably over a horse.
In 1932, he produced Scarface, a gangster drama inspired by Al Capone. Hughes did what every shy, lonely moviegoer dreams of doing.”Īfter Hell’s Angels, he set about ticking off other genres. “He is the fan who walked in off the street, who made movies and bossed a studio, and who was crazy and hopeful enough to think of having Jean Harlow, Jane Russell, Katharine Hepburn, Ida Lupino. David Thomson, the cinema historian, argues in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film that movie fans – especially male movie fans – are fascinated by Hughes because he lived out our guiltiest adolescent fantasies. He is both a fantasy figure of the dashing young tycoon playboy and a cautionary tale about the corrosive power of wealth. The inventor, film producer and eccentric recluse billionaire who, according to legend, was crippled with obsessive-compulsive disorder in his final years and barely seen by anyone, Hughes has popped up in many films and TV shows from Melvin and Howard to The Rocketeer. Rules Don’t Apply is set in 1958, a decade after the Scorsese biopic finishes, so it could be seen as a de facto sequel. As well as writing, directing and producing the film – which he has been planning for 40 years – Beatty stars as Howard Hughes, the eccentric Texan aeronautics pioneer and Hollywood mogul who was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in Scorsese’s The Aviator.īut Beatty needn’t worry too much about comparisons.
It takes a brave director to tackle a life story that Martin Scorsese has already put on screen, but that’s what Warren Beatty has done in Rules Don’t Apply.
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