Based on the "true" story of Melvin Dummar - from the Academy Award-winning script by Bo Goldman (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST) - who was named as one of sixteen benefactors of a will discovered among the documents of the Mormon Church and purportedly drawn up by the late, eccentric millionair Howard Hughes who Dummar claimed to have once encountered in the Nevada desert. The film opens with factory worker Melvin (Paul Le Mat, AMERICAN GRAFFITI) driving home one night and stumbling across an injured and incoherent wino (Jason Robards, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) who claims to be Howard Hughes. He annoys the old man with Christmas song he has penned and badgers him into singing one of his own before giving him his pocket change and dropping him off in Las Vegas in front of an upscale hotel. The bulk of the film follows the ups and downs of Melvin's life as his wife Linda (FROM HELL's Mary Steenburgen who was won Best Supporting Actress for her role) runs out on him with beleaguered daughter Darcy (Elizabeth Cheshire, AIRPORT '77) to become a stripper in Vegas after his truck is repossessed, their divorce and remarriage when she becomes pregnant with son, his attempts to make a better life for his family and their bout of good fortune which leads to a second divorce. Going from "Milkman of the Month" to debt-ridden joke, Melvin never believes in himself enough to take a risk (in spite of Linda's own chances and her stated belief in him informed by self-help books of the period). His only chance to shine is the performance of a crowd-pleasing song at a company Christmas party that leads payroll clerk Bonnie (Pamela Reed, THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR) agreeing to run off with him and run a Utah services station after her brother loses his lease. When a mysterious motorist (Charles Napier, LAST EMBRACE) leaves the supposed Hughes will with Melvin, his decision to slip it in among the papers for processing at the Mormon Church headquarters could just as easily be the act of a schemer or - as the film suggests - a man who already knows he will never be believed and will become a national media punchline; for whom the only thing that really matters of the affair is that he made Howard Hughes sing one of his songs. Although director Jonathan Demme (SOMETHING WILD) had been working with regular DP Tak Fujimoto since his debut CAGED HEAT, MELVIN AND HOWARD was the first film in which he worked with editor Craig McKay (REDS) who would be nominated for his work on SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and producer Gary Goetzman (PHILADELPHIA) here as an actor. The supporting cast also includes turns by a typically quirky Michael J. Pollard (BONNIE AND CLYDE), Dabney Coleman (TOOTSIE), John Glover (ROBOCOP 2), Martine Beswick (THUNDERBALL), Gloria Grahame (THE BIG HEAT), and an uncredited Joe Spinell (MANIAC) as a sleazy club owner.