The Hoax is the psuedo-historical story of how an author named Clifford
Irving convinced the famous publishing house McGraw-Hill that he was
co-writing an authorized autobiography of Howard Hughes back in the early seventies, even though Irving
had never met
Hughes, and didn't even know much about the eccentric billionaire when he conceived the
project. The entire project was nothing but smoke and mirrors. Irving thought he could pull off this quixotic endeavor
because "the aviator" was an eccentric
recluse who never contacted the outside world, and might be both physically
and mentally ill, and would therefore not come
forward to deny his involvement in the autobiography. Irving came close to
pulling it all off. Although there were doubters at every step of the
project, the author managed to bluff his way past
just about every skeptic. Some of his persuasive skills were innate. Some
came from his assiduous research. By the time he was exposed, Irving had
became such an expert on his subject that he could deliver convincing
anecdotes in Hughes's own idiolect, and could even fool handwriting experts
with forgeries of Hughes's famous handwritten letters.
The final key to Irving's (temporary) success was pure serendipity. Irving happened
to get a copy of an unpublished memoir written by Noah Dietrich, Hughes's
closest associate, and that document included a
nearly verbatim records of a previously unrevealed conversation with a top
magazine editor. Since the influential editor had never told anyone about
the conversation, this
knowledge enabled Irving to persuade him that the
account had come from an interview with Hughes himself.
So it was with a brazen combination of luck, chutzpah, and preparation
that Irving got the book very close to the bookshelves before he
was ultimately undone by the money trail. Since he did not know Hughes, he
had to figure out some way to deposit the checks which McGraw-Hill wrote for
Hughes's fee. It was Mrs. Irving's attempt to
deposit the "H.R. Hughes" check that scotched the snake. In retrospect,
Irving might have gotten the book to the top of the best seller lists if he
had simply tucked the big Hughes checks away, at least for a while. The
McGraw-Hill accountants would probably have found nothing unusual about an uncashed
Hughes check. After all, Hughes was a noted flake, and so rich that
another million dollars or so was mere pocket change to him. He could easily
have left such a check lying around with his Kleenex boxes. On the other
hand, such a strategy would have done no more than delay the
inevitable, because Irving was not correct in his assumption that Hughes
would remain
mute. The inscrutable plutocrat did break his long public silence
to denounce the Irving project as a hoax. In fact, the Hughes press
conference was quite a landmark event - the last time Hughes would ever
contact the outside world.
In the craziest sidebar to the story, it has been suggested that
the Irving book may have
motivated the Watergate break-in!
The critics were particularly enthusiastic about this movie. According to
Rotten Tomatoes, a very impressive 85% of the reviews were positive. That's
Oscar territory! I don't really share that lofty level of enthusiasm. Although it is an
interesting story assembled by good actors and a competent director, it has
one great flaw. The storyline is almost total bullshit. Of course, that's
both ironic and appropriate. The real Irving is still alive and kicking, and is an intelligent guy with a great sense of humor, two characteristics which
must allow him to realize that a falsified account of his life is precisely
what his karma has earned him. That's fair enough for him, but it's not what my karma has earned me as
an audience member. I hoped to see how this scam all went down, but the
film's story
about Clifford Irving's life is no more authentic than Irving's story about
Hughes's life. In fact,
Irving's fake book is probably far less fake than
this movie, since the success of his scam depended on his ability to make
the book as credible as possible. Although he embellished Hughes's life in
many ways, Irving researched thoroughly and used
Dietrich's manuscript to establish the facts, and he also worked hard to make
Hughes's first person quotes sound exactly like things the billionaire did
say or could have said. This film has no such fealty to the truth. It simply
tries to tell a ripping yarn, irrespective of whether that yarn could be
unraveled by scrutiny.
The script takes many liberties with the facts as well as with the
personalities of the characters, but two critical points come to mind:
(1) The movie version
of Dick Suskind, Irving's co-conspirator, as played by Alfred Molina, seems like a sweaty and
often
self-righteous doofus, Sancho Panza to Irving's crooked Quijote.
(2) The script fabricates an important incident. Mysteriously, Gere/Irving receives a package of files from Nevada, presumably from a Hughes
insider, which give him great insights
into the inner workings of the Hughes endeavors. That never happened. That
bit of hyperbole not be so bad if this were a white lie presented as a throwaway
incident, but the effect of this lie is greatly exacerbated by the script's
incorporation of those files into the very broth and marrow of the
narrative, thus squeezing the film out of the realm of "comfortable
accommodation to the truth" and into a surreal world worthy of Dali.
Why was this necessary? I grant that The Hoax is quite an enjoyable movie
(most of the time), but if it is supposed to be a true story, why isn't it
... true? Why go to all the trouble of getting Richard Gere to look like
Irving if he wasn't actually going to act like Irving? And why wasn't the
real story good enough for a film? It seems to me that the actual
skullduggery of Clifford Irving, Mrs. Irving and Richard Suskind was more
than sufficiently intriguing to create a movie both entertaining and
enlightening. So why the unnecessary embellishment? In my mind, the changes
didn't actually create a better story; just a different one.
The best thing about the movie? It got me curious enough to order and
read the book, which is Irving's own account of these events! I recommend
that you do the same. Clifford Irving is
an engaging raconteur, and I'm convinced that he did his best to tell the
truth about everything.
