When Rules Don't Apply

I have read that this Warren Beatty failed at the Box Office, in part because people under thirty probably never heard either of Howard Hughes, the once most famous and infamous aviator and filmmaker and drug addled, nutty icon of the mid twentieth century, nor of the filmmaker, Beatty, himself.

I don't get this idea that history, of film or of the world at large, isn't known to those under thirty. I mean, when I was a kid, in the mid 1960s, me and my generation were very aware of movies and history from before the 1950s, even unto the beginning of film itself. In a time well before the digital age, we were introduced to and fascinated by the stars of yesteryear. I knew the movies favored by my father and mother, as well as the music. I had a sense of continuity, and so did my friends.

From my perspective, the lack of interest by the current young generation in the lives of those who went before them is more evidence of the destructive narcissism which guarantees that the evils of history will repeat themselves. And, a kind of corollary proof of what happens when people take the view that rules just don't apply to them.

I don't know that Warren Beatty was intending any kind of morality tale with his movie, which whether it failed or not at the box office, was one for thinking adults--nary a CGI or an explosion in sight, thank the Lord! But I saw one that somehow partially explains to me the lack of interest by our soon to be young leaders--and now I say, "God Help Us!" on that score.

The character of Hughes is real. The tale told in the movie is fiction.

It is 1959 and a young girl, Marla Mabry, comes to Hollywood, with her mother at first, to be part of the Hughesian film-making stable of starlets. They get acting training, and they are given lovely places to live, and if Hughes takes a personal interest, one or more of them might even get a screen test. Marla is a Baptist. She is what was once known as a "good girl". She doesn't drink, and she hasn't taken the dive into sexual activity. Frank Forbes, a young Methodist engaged to his seventh grade first love, a young man who actually prays before he takes his meals, has arrived from Fresno to be one of Hughes' chauffeurs. There is a rule, one of the first that doesn't apply, that the staff is to have no romantic commerce with the starlets. Frank and Marla are cut from the same cloth. Though both are ambitious, they are not yet jaded. They are innocents. And they are naturally attracted to one another. But because Frank has already had sex with his fiancee, Marla considers him already married and not available to her. When they first meet, and although they are both presumably working for Hughes, neither has met him.

Once mother is out of the picture (a small role for Warren Beatty's real life wife, Annette Benning), things heat up for Marla, and for Frank. Marla finally meets the elusive Mr. Hughes in a dimly lit cottage at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and finally gets a screen test. Frank contemporaneously moves up from ordinary chauffeur to a kind of major domo for the lunatic Hughes' making sure that he gets every bit of a single flavor from Baskin Robbins he demands, and taking risky flights with the aging aviator at the helm.

Marla and Frank, together so often, are unable to remain a purely platonic couple and they have a embarrassing near consummation that causes Frank to break up with his girlfriend at home. Meanwhile, Marla is summoned to have her screen test reviewed with Hughes at the cottage--except it isn't Marla that Hughes wants to see, it is Marilyn Monroe. While she waits to be given the unceremonious heave ho by Hughes, who is convinced that the bankers planning on lending him money for a project with his airline TWA, want him committed, takes her first, second, third, whole bottle drink. Hughes is convinced that if he gets married, no one will be able to commit him, and he impulsively gives the inebriated Marla an emerald ring and pronounces them married. Marla flirts aggressively; Hughes is no gentleman, and she is deflowered.

Frank sees that she is having a relationship with someone, but he has no idea it is Hughes. Marla and Frank go their separate ways. Hughes does marry (the actress Jean Peters) in Las Vegas, apparently erasing his evening with Marla from his mind. When Marla tells Hughes of her pregnancy, he calls her a liar. Marla does not explain anything to Frank; she in fact rejects any rapprochement with him, and they part in anger. Marla returns to her hometown; she is no longer joyful or innocent.

Four and a half years later, Hughes has become more of a recluse. A book has been written about how unhinged Hughes is and his business interests are thus endangered if he does not prove he is functional. Frank has become even more significant a part of Hughes retinue. He is unhappy. He has lost any semblance of faith. Marla has information that can assist Hughes and she arrives at his Acapulco hideaway to impart it. She arrives with a little boy. She places the emerald ring long ago given to her in a box to be returned to Hughes. It is only then that Frank realizes what had happened to her all those years ago. The boy is Hughes unacknowledged son. Hughes is able to salvage his business by doing a radio interview that "proves" he is not mentally incompetent (although of course he really is), Frank quits the life where no rules apply and goes to join Marla and her son in an ordinary life where rules do apply.

To me the movie is really a morality tale, whether intended to be or not. Morality tales are somewhat passe. But I find they are all these days that give me any hope of personal sanity in a world gone quite quite mad.

It might well be that the "good old days" were not as good as was pretended, too rigid, too full of cruel consequence for rules transgressed, but the inexorable march to a world of no rules is not a tenable solution. I hope that the fictional Marla and Frank found a moderation between the two.

I'd say, get Rules Don't Apply on DVD. Its a respite from explosions and special effects and might be a cause for something little done these days, a bit of reflection on the meaning of life.