Howard Hughes is Nuts (spoiler)

Looking at this film along with the earlier Aviator and also The Carpetbaggers (based on Hughes), it is safe to conclude that he was totally nuts. The only reason he was tolerated by anyone was because of his vast wealth. His anti-social behavior would have landed him in a loony bins, if he were not surrounded by yes-men sycophants.

Warren Beatty always was interested in portraying Hughes on the screen, as he was in doing something with Bugsy Segal. Rules Don't Apply allowed him to get his wish about Hughes just as Bugsy did nearly twenty five years ago. Both films are interesting, but extraordinarily flawed. Notice in Rules Don't Apply, that they make more than passing reference to DNA, then an emerging science. I think they were setting us up for a DNA test on the little kid, to prove that Hughes was the father, but somehow they dropped this thread.

Beatty likes to play with death and dies in many of his films (Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Parallax View, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Bugsy, Bulworth), and it's surprising that he did not kill Hughes off at the end of this movie. (Maybe depicting his death on screen he hopes to cheat it in real life.)

When it is finally time for Warren Beatty to shuffle off this mortal coil, he will be remembered as a quirky film maker who did just about whatever he damn well pleased, box office hit or not.

If he never made a film AFTER Bonnie and Clyde, Beatty would have a top place in American cinema, since that one movie thoroughly changed what audiences could expect on the silver screen. (Along with The Graduate, I might add.)