The Aviator

On 30 Dec 2004 06:01:39 -0800, wrote:

Did the ending bother anybody else? We have a rough idea of how it
should end, but after sitting there for three hours I thought they may
as well show it.

Well, the movie just stopped. I think everybody in the tiny 12-holer
theater (five seats to the left of the center aisle, three seats to
the right!) was willing for it to go on for another half-hour, surely
the sign of a successful movie.

I stood up to go, but watched the credits because I wanted to know who
had played Juan Trippe, a fine performance. The gal behind me loudly
said: "Sir?" So she was also hooked enough to want to read the credits
also. I saw a lot of people doing just that. (Well, as many people as
you can get into that theater, which was smaller than the one where
Howard supposedly lived for a time.)

It was a movie, for crying out loud! A movie-movie. Not art, not
biography. A pleasant, dumb, colorful movie that kept me interested
for 2hr 45min or whatever it was.

If you want biography, you might start with George Marrett, Howard
Hughes, Aviator, from Naval Institute Press. Marrett was a Hughes test
pilot who earlier wrote Cheating Death about flying a Sandy Skyraider
in Vietnam.

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 04:02:26 GMT, Orval Fairbairn wrote:

There was also one major script error. When hughes was plotting to take
TWA international (about '43-'44) he was stalking about the competition
and included Lufthansa. HELLO! We were fighting Germany at the time and
certainly wouldn't expect Lufthansa to survive the war. (They didn't fly
again until the late 1950s)


check the LH site:
http://konzern.lufthansa.com/en/html/ueber_uns/geschichte/chronik/index.html

---snip
(...)
After substantial expansion of the route network in 1939—including flights
to Bangkok and Santiago de Chile—wartime air services, except for a few
European countries, are suspended. All flights are discontinued in 1945 and
Lufthansa goes into receivership and is finally wound up and struck from
the Berlin commercial register in 1965.

The Federal Transport Minister sets up a working committee in 1951 to
prepare for the resumption of air traffic in postwar Germany and entrusts
the job of implementation to "Büro Bongers", the office headed by Hans M.
Bongers, the traffic chief of the old Lufthansa in Cologne. A new company
to run air services and named "Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf"
(Luftag) is founded in Cologne on January 6, 1953. The company changes its
name to the more traditional "Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesellschaft" in
1954, and resumes scheduled flights on April 1, 1955.
(...)
---snap

#m
--
Oh. God. What have we done.

Don't get me wrong...I really liked it. I was just surprised after
coming that far that it just stopped. Many people I talked to about
the movie who know less that I about Howard Hughes felt the same way.
Maybe it will encourage them to do some reading (gasp) on the subject.

"Pilot22a" wrote in message
...
I saw it and I thought that the DeCaprio was just a little bit too
effeminate to play a guy like Hughes.

And here I understood Hughes to have been just a little bit effeminate.

My family and I are going to see the movie today. It will be cool to
watch it now with all this good prepatory info.
Jim
http://FunPlacesToFly.com
http://HomebuiltWorld.com

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 07:58:54 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote in
::


"Pilot22a" wrote in message
...
I saw it and I thought that the DeCaprio was just a little bit too
effeminate to play a guy like Hughes.

And here I understood Hughes to have been just a little bit effeminate.


Where did you get that idea?

From what I've read, Hughes was quite the ladies man, and a rather
authoritarian captain of industry. Consider, he was able to finesse
(over the phone) Jackie Cochran's new Gamma (?) from her for a record
flight before it was delivered to her, and when he needed a wife to
parry Noah Dietrich's gambit, he was able to cause Jean Peters to
marry him on a moment's notice. Certainly, his performance before
Sen. Brewster's inquisition revealed a commanding demeanor
considerably the other side of effeminate.

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news

And here I understood Hughes to have been just a little bit effeminate.


Where did you get that idea?


I suppose I was thinking of Hughes' bisexuality.

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:07:44 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote in
::


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news

And here I understood Hughes to have been just a little bit effeminate.


Where did you get that idea?


I suppose I was thinking of Hughes' bisexuality.


This is the first mention of that I have heard. Do you have a source
to cite?

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 15:33:42 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote in ::

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:07:44 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote in
::


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news

And here I understood Hughes to have been just a little bit effeminate.


Where did you get that idea?


I suppose I was thinking of Hughes' bisexuality.


This is the first mention of that I have heard. Do you have a source
to cite?



It would appear that you are correct:
http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/15/film-taylor.php

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:07:44 -0800, "C J Campbell"
wrote in
::


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news

And here I understood Hughes to have been just a little bit
effeminate.


Where did you get that idea?


I suppose I was thinking of Hughes' bisexuality.


This is the first mention of that I have heard. Do you have a source
to cite?

"Howard Hughes, the Secret Life" by Charles Higham. Several of the movie
reviews mention it also. For example, OC Weekly describes Hughes'
bisexuality as now proven, but they seem to question whether Hughes ran into
as many "dark handsome men" as Higham alleges. Some of the reviews mention
Hughes' relationship with Cary Grant. Some of the reviews even go so far as
to suggest that Hughes' death was AIDS related.

One reviewer goes the other way -- saying that Hughes' germ phobia must have
prevented him from having sex with anyone, ever, which seems unlikely.

Perhaps 'effeminate' is the wrong choice of words. (What is 'effeminate,'
anyway? Any definition of it must be subjective.) Perhaps I should have said
"decadent."