Melvin And Howard (1980)

While driving his pickup truck at night through the Nevada desert, a man (Paul LeMat) picks up an injured disheveled old man (Jason Robards) who claims to be Howard Hughes. Several years later when Hughes dies, the man (now running a gas station in Utah) discovers he is among those listed in Hughes will but is the will a phony? Based on the true story of Melvin Dummar and what came to be known as the "Mormon will", this is a wonderful film. The director Jonathan Demme and his screenwriter Bo Goldman (whose screenplay won an Oscar) have fabricated a perfect tall tale of the American dream. Whether one believes the will was authentic (and based on the evidence, there's no reason to believe it wasn't),  Demme has created an updated Preston Sturges movie. There's a genuine affection for his blue collar characters and not an iota of condescension. LeMat (an actor who should have had a bigger career) inhabits Dummar so completely that you never even think of it as acting. In the hands of a lesser actor, Dummar might have come off as a dim witted redneck but in LeMat's performance, he's a stand in for everyone who's had a dream. With a luminous Mary Steenburgen (justifiably Oscared for her work here), Pamela Reed, Michael J. Pollard, Jack Kehoe, Charles Napier, Dabney Coleman, Charlene Holt, Rick Lenz and Gloria Grahame whose role seems to have been severely cut.