16:20 minutes (4.68 MB)
When he died in April of 1976, Howard Hughes was the wealthiest man in the world. Even kind accounts of Hughes called him eccentric, and he was well known for his early film, Hell’s Angels. Not because the film was so great, and not even because of its introduction of Jean Harlow to the film world. He was known for the film because it took him 3 years to film it, and it cost $3.8 million. That’s in 1930. It was years before he made a profit. He had 84 planes, and the film involved lots of scenes of the planes in the air. With each viewing of the footage, though, he was unsatisfied. He wanted the viewer to be aware of how fast those planes were going, but against the clear California sky, they looked pretty, but not fast.
