January 7 - The Hoax

Today’s movie is a drama with a scene that happens on January 7. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

THE HOAX   

Clifford Irving is upset when McGraw-Hill decides not to publish his new novel and comes up with a scheme to claim he has been asked by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to write Hughes autobiography. Irving and Richard Suskind research Hughes and get to look at Hughes associate Noah Dietrich’s unpublished memoir. Life magazine offers a huge sum for the serialization rights, but then a guy named Eaton says he’s writing Hughes biography. Irving claims Hughes annoyed at sale to Life and now wants a $1 million advance, which McGraw- Hill agrees to pay. Irving sends his wife to Zurich to cash the check then a box of files that expose illegal links between Hughes and President Richard Nixon are mailed to Irving, who thinks he can use them to avoid any problems about the book. Irving handles a non-appearance by Hughes. Irving is kidnapped by Hughes agents, then the Swiss bank reveals the check was cashed by a woman  President Nixon is terrified of what the book might reveal. On January 7, 1972 [1:40:50 to 1:49:03] Howard Hughes holds a teleconference to denounce Irving’s “autobiography” of him as a fraud. Irving, his wife and Suskind all go to jail for various periods.

Howard Hughes: Hell’s Angel by Darwin Porter (BloodMoonProductions, Ltd., New York, 2005) at page 788 gives the date of the teleconference

Director - Lasse Hallström

Producers - Mark Gordon, Bob Yari, Betsy Beers, Leslie Holleran and Joshua Maurer

Screenplay - William Wheeler

Released – October 15, 2006

Runtime -  1 hour 56 minutes

Starring –

Richard Gere as Clifford Irving

Alfred Molina as Richard Suskind

Marcia Gay Harden as Edith Irving

Hope Davis as Andrea Tate

Julie Delpy as Nina, Baroness van Pallandt

Stanley Tucci as Shelton Fisher

Eli Wallach as Noah Dietrich

Christopher Evan Welch as Albert Vanderkamp

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.