Melvin and Howard - Part III

Roundel · 24 August 2008, 08:55 PM

Since it concerns the producer-director of Hell's Angels, I decided to post this story here.

At 0100, Monday, August 25, 2008, Eastern Time (USA), Melvin Dummar of Melvin and Howard fame is scheduled to appear on the radio show Coast to Coast AM. He is former operator of a gasoline station in Utah who claimed that he rescued Howard Hughes from the dessert and that the grateful billionaire bequeathed his fortune to him via the handwritten "Mormon will."

As for the "Part III" in the title, "Part I" was the feature film (in which Hughes was played by a distant cousin, Jason Robards, Jr.) and "Part II" was Melvin's appearance on the TV show Lie Detector in which he submitted to a polygraph exam.

He failed.

backusstudio · 25 August 2008, 07:31 AM

Here is a bit of Melvin and Howard trivia for you movie buffs out there.

When I was in my last semesters at the Art Center College in Pasadena, CA the producers of Melvin and Howard got the bright idea of having a contest at our design and advertising school rather than pay professional designers. The student with the winning poster design (called a "one-sheet" in industry terms) would get a small cash award and see their art used as the poster for a major studio film. A big deal for starving art students. The winning deign was created by Kathleen Swain, a very talented artist who went on to be a background painter for Disney. Her design showed a very excited Melvin kicking up his heels after getting the big check from his friend Howard Hughes.

In the '90s all of the studios switched from the time honored tradition of using paintings for their promotional posters to using Photoshopped photos. Even older theatrical releases got new photo packaging for their video packaging to keep them looking 'fresh'. Kathleen's design, along with a lot of other great movie artwork from the '70s and '80s, was replaced by a photo.

Roundel · 25 August 2008, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Even older theatrical releases got new photo packaging for their video packaging to keep them looking 'fresh'.

The cover of the DVD release of Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) has a dramatic photograph of the Colesium in Rome, built long after the events in the film, set around 35 AD.

The artwork for the DVD release of its predecessor, The Robe (1953), has a shot of Michael Wilding and Victor Mature from The Egyptian (1954)!

Makes you wonder who's minding the store at 20th Century-Fox...