In 1914, nine-year-old Howard Hughes was being bathed by his mother. She warns him of disease, influenced by a flu outbreak, “You are not safe.” Howard’s later life will be greatly affected by his fear of disease.
In 1927, preparing to direct the film Hell’s Angels at the age of 22, Hughes hires Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly) to run the Hughes Tool Company. Hughes becomes obsessed with shooting the film realistically. As a result, it takes several years and an enormous amount of money to finish. When the film is finally completed in 1929, the The Jazz Singer, the first partially-talking film, premieres. Hughes re-shoots Hell’s Angels with sound, taking another year and $1.7 million. Despite press skepticism, Hell’s Angels is a huge hit. Hughes also produces Scarface (1932) and The Outlaw (1943).
Hughes becomes involved with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). She eventually moves in with him. She helps alleviate the symptoms of his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder. As Hughes’ fame grows, he is linked to various beautiful starlets, inciting Hepburn’s jealousy.
Through it all, Hughes’ main passion remains the same: aviation. He purchases majority interest in Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA), the predecessor to Trans World Airlines. In 1935, he test flies the H-1 Racer, pushing it to a new speed record, but crashes in a beet field; “Fastest man on the planet,” he boasts to Hepburn. Three years later, he flies around the world in four days, shattering the previous record by three days. Meanwhile, Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin), chairman of the board of rival Pan American Airlines, worries about the competition. Trippe gets his crony, Senator Owen Brewster (Alan Alda), to introduce the Commercial Airline Bill, which would give Pan Am a monopoly on international air travel.
Hepburn and Hughes eventually break up when she announces that she has fallen in love with fellow actor Spencer Tracy. Hughes soon has new love interests: first 15-year-old Faith Domergue (Kelli Garner), then Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale).
Hughes secures contracts with the Army Air Forces for two projects, a spy plane and a huge troop transport designed to circumvent the U-boat menace. By 1946, Hughes has only finished the XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft and is still building the H-4 Hercules (“Spruce Goose”) flying boat.
Hughes’ sanity begins to deteriorate, characterized by the repetition of phrases, and a phobia to dust and germs. That July, he takes the XF-11 for a test flight. One of the engines malfunctions, causing the aircraft to crash in Beverly Hills. He slowly recuperates from near-fatal injuries. Though the H-4 Hercules is canceled, he continues development with his own money. When he is discharged, he is told that he has to choose between funding the airline and his flying boat.
Hughes grows increasingly paranoid, planting microphones and tapping Gardner’s phone lines to keep track of her. After being confronted by her, he returns home to find the FBI searching his house for incriminating evidence of war profiteering. The incident is a powerful psychological trauma for Hughes, with investigators handling his possessions and tracking dirt everywhere. In private, Brewster offers to drop the charges if Hughes will support his bill and sell TWA to Trippe, but Hughes turns him down. Hughes sinks into a deep depression, shutting himself in his screening room and growing ever detached from reality; terrified of germs, he urinates into empty milk bottles. Hepburn tries, but is unable to help him. When Trippe visits him, an enraged Hughes vows he will never sell TWA. Trippe has Brewster subpoena Hughes for a Senate investigation.
The H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” transport.
After nearly three months, Ava Gardner personally grooms and dresses Hughes, preparing him for the hearing chaired by Brewster. Reinvigorated, he effectively defends himself against Brewster’s charges and accuses Trippe of essentially bribing the senator to hold the hearings. Trippe realizes his attempt to dominate American civil aviation is doomed.
To disprove Brewster’s contention that the Hercules was a costly boondoggle, Hughes successfully test flies the flying boat himself. After the flight, he talks to Dietrich and his mechanic, Glenn Odekirk (Matt Ross), about a new jetliner for TWA [N 1] He seems free of his inner demons, but then he begins repeating “the way of the future” over and over again. Dietrich and Odekirk quickly hide Hughes in a restroom, then Dietrich goes to fetch a doctor. Alone, Hughes has a flashback to his boyhood, being washed by his mother, and resolving he would fly the fastest aircraft ever built, make the biggest movies ever and become the richest man in the world.
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