Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1980

The Contenders:

Brubaker
Fame
Melvin and Howard (winner)
Mon Oncle d’Amerique
Private Benjamin

BOSUD

Film: Melvin and Howard
Format: DVD from Mokena Community Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve said for years that my ideal job would be being an heir to a great fortune. I’d be really good at that. I’d devote my life to some cause or some scientific study or another. I’d set up foundations. Seriously, if I ever win the lottery, you can expect scientific and educational foundations coming out of my home town with my name on them. Melvin and Howard is sort of the sad fantasy version of inheriting a fortune, kinda. This is the first of what has been called a BOSUD, or “biography of someone undeserving.” That person is Melvin Dummar (Paul Le Mat).

As the film opens, we see an old man (Jason Robards) riding a motorcycle through the Nevada desert. He has an accident and ends up lying on the sand. It’s not until that night that he’s picked up by Melvin and driven back into Las Vegas. Melvin does his best to engage the old man in conversation, asking him to sing with him to pass the time. Eventually, he does, and he also claims to be Howard Hughes. Eventually, Melvin drops him off at a Hughes-owned hotel in Vegas and drives home to discover that his wife Lynda (Mary Steenburgen) is leaving with their daughter Darcy (Elizabeth Cheshire).