Melvin and Howard is a 1980 American comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme. The screenplay by Bo Goldman was inspired by real-life Utah service station owner Melvin Dummar, who was listed as the beneficiary of USD$156 million in a will allegedly handwritten by Howard Hughes that was discovered in the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. A novelization of Goldman's script later was written by George Gipe. In the opening scene, Hughes loses control of and crashes his motorcycle in the Nevada desert. That night, he's discovered lying on the... side of a stretch of U.S. Highway 95 where Dummar stops his pickup truck so he can relieve himself. The disheveled stranger, refusing to allow the Good Samaritan to take him for medical help, asks him to drive him to Las Vegas. En route, the two engage in stilted conversation until Dummar cajoles his passenger into joining him in singing a Christmas song he wrote. The man warms up to his rescuer and before he's dropped off at the Sands Hotel, he identifies himself as the reclusive billionaire.
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| Release date: | 1980 |
| Directed by: | Jonathan Demme |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 95 Minutes |
| Producer: | Art Linson, Don Phillips |
| Editor: | Craig McKay |
| Music by: | Bruce Langhorne |
| Cinematography: | Tak Fujimoto |
| Screenplay by: | Bo Goldman |
| Genre: | Comedy |