rowmorg Review of Melvin and Howard

Melvin and Howard (1980)

Slice of life movie grows in stature with time

[7/10 · 20 September 2013]

Melvin's first wife, whom he married twice, played by Mary Steenburgen, may have a lovely body and shakes her booty nicely but she's pretty loose and whores around without a problem --- hey, that's life. That's what Director Jonathan Demme packed into his little biopic about Melvin Dummar. It's all there: the mobile home (trailer), the repo guys, the trashy jobs that Melvin (played by Paul LeMat) can't hold. And it's so believable that he stopped to pee while driving across the Nevada desert and noticed Howard Hughes lying injured on the ground (he'd crashed his motorcycle). He thought Hughes was a bum, and took no notice when he said his name. Eight years later when Hughes died he noticed, and when someone delivered a handwritten will that left him, Melvin, one- sixteenth of the estate, or $165m, he drove over to Salt Lake City and left it in the "in" tray of the Mormons' head office. Of course the will was declared phony by the Clark County Court, and Melvin was subjected to ridicule. But Demme shows him still confident at the end and hoping against hope that one day he might see some cash. This is a slice of South-Western US life that is still well worth seeing. Look out for it. Only one question: whatever happened to Paul LeMat after his big launch in the 1970s?