Leonardo DiCaprio credited as playing...
Howard Hughes
- Ava Gardner: You listened to my phone calls?
- Howard Hughes: No! No! No! Honey I would never do that! I'd never do that! I... I just read the transcripts, that's all.
- [on "The Outlaw"]
- Glenn Odekirk: Howard, you really think they're gonna let you put out a whole movie just about tits?
- Howard Hughes: [beat] Sure. Who doesn't like tits?
- [cut to a panel of frowning members of the Motion Pictures Association of America]
- Howard Hughes: Does that look clean to you?
- Ava Gardner: Nothing's clean, Howard. But we do our best, right?
- Howard Hughes: Look at me, Kate. Stop acting.
- Katharine Hepburn: Ha. I'm not acting.
- Howard Hughes: I wonder if you even know any more.
- Katharine Hepburn: Don't be unkind.
- Howard Hughes: [doesn't hear what Kate says] Excuse me?
- Katharine Hepburn: Well, if you're deaf, you must own up to it. Get a hearing aid, or see my father. He's an urologist, but it's all tied up inside the body, don't you find?
- Howard Hughes: Mmm.
- Katharine Hepburn: Me, I keep healthy. I take seven showers a day to keep clean, also because I'm so vulgarly referred to as "outdoors-y." Well, I'm not "outdoors-y," I'm athletic. I sweat! There it is, now we both know the sordid truth: I sweat, and you're deaf. Aren't we a fine pair of misfits?
- Katharine Hepburn: I've been famous - for better or worse - for a long time now... I wonder if you know what that really means.
- Howard Hughes: I got my fair share of press on Hell's Angels. I'm used to it.
- Katharine Hepburn: Are you?
- Katharine Hepburn: Howard, we're not like everyone else. Too many acute angles. Too many eccentricities. We have to be very careful not to let people in or they'll make us into freaks.
- Howard Hughes: Kate, they can't get in here. We're safe.
- Katharine Hepburn: Oh? Oh, they can always get in. When my brother killed himself there were photographers at the funeral. There's no decency to it.
- Howard Hughes: Actresses are cheap in this town, darlin'. And I got a lot of money.
- Katharine Hepburn: Please, Howard, this is beneath you.
- Howard Hughes: No no. This is exactly me. You come over here out of the blue and tell me you're leaving me for someone else and you have the nerve to expect graciousness?
- Katharine Hepburn: I expected a little maturity, I expect you to face this situation like an adul...
- Howard Hughes: DON'T TALK DOWN TO ME! Don't you EVER talk down to me! You are a movie star, nothing more!
- Howard Hughes: No, wait! Honey, you can't move! You can't move, you're safe here! You're in the germ-free zone now, y'understand?
- Ava Gardner: I'll take my chances.
- Howard Hughes: No, no! Honey, wait... wait, uh...
- [Ava removes the string barriers from the doorway and walks into the study. She turns on the light, revealing that entire room is covered with used tissues and string barriers everywhere. Silence for a moment]
- Ava Gardner: Love what you've done with the place...
- Katharine Hepburn: What's that on the steering wheel?
- Howard Hughes: Cellophane. If you had any idea of the crap that people carry around on their hands.
- Katharine Hepburn: What kind of crap?
- Howard Hughes: You don't wanna know.
- Howard Hughes: Do you know those fellas? Do they work for me?
- Noah Dietrich: Everybody works for you, Howard.
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: All right, let's get down to business. Let's talk turkey. My investigation...
- [He nearly bursts into laughter]
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: My investigation has turned up a lot of dirt. It could be really embarassing if this stuff got out. I'd like to save you from that embarassment.
- Howard Hughes: That's very kind of you, Owen.
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: My committee has the power to hold public hearings. I'd like to spare you from that.
- Howard Hughes: [smirks] Would you, now?
- [Brewster abruptly drops his silverware]
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: Look, do you wanna go down in history as a war profiteer, Howard? Is that what you want?
- Howard Hughes: [gravely] What do you want, Owen?
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: You agree to support my C.A.B. bill, and I won't hold public hearings.
- Howard Hughes: I can't do that, Owen. Can't do that. The C.A.B. bill would kill TWA.
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: Sell T.W.A. to Pan Am. You'll get a good price. You'll get a fair price, I'm telling you.
- Howard Hughes: And then...? Then you won't go public?
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: Right. That's right. The investigation's closed. Nobody knows a thing. It's better for everybody.
- [pause]
- Howard Hughes: You know, Owen, I'm still wondering one thing. The picture of the llama you got last year. Where'd you sail from?
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: [disinterested] We didn't sail. We flew.
- Howard Hughes: You flew?
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: Yeah.
- Howard Hughes: Ah.
- [Brewster stops chewing abruptly, realizing what Howard's implying]
- Howard Hughes: [leans in] Are you sure you want to do this, Owen? You want to go to war with me?
- Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster: It isn't me, Howard. It's the United States government. We just beat Germany and Japan. Who the hell are you?
- Howard Hughes: [getting up from the table] You tell Juan Trippe something for me, all right? Tell him thanks for the flowers. And he can kiss both sides of my ass.
- [leaves]
- Glenn Odekirk: We installed the 450 radial, but the struts won't take the vibration. Minute we go contact, the struts start craking at the attach points.
- Howard Hughes: Dammit, Odie, if the 450's too big, figure something else out!
- Glenn Odekirk: We've done everything - we've rebuilt her from top to bottom. If we drain the fuel tank for a couple of runs she might make 180 mph.
- Howard Hughes: I want minimum 200.
- Glenn Odekirk: Yeah, well, I want a date with Theda Bara, but that ain't gonna happen either.
- Howard Hughes: Don't be so sure... OK, OK, OK, this is a simple engineering problem. We just gotta think it out.
- [pause]
- Howard Hughes: So if the struts won't sustain the engine we need - then we gotta get rid of them.
- Glenn Odekirk: Then the top wing falls off.
- Howard Hughes: Then let it.
- Glenn Odekirk: What?
- Howard Hughes: Who says we need a top wing?
- [pauses]
- Howard Hughes: Who says we need *anything*?
- [Glenn is warming up to Hughes' idea]
- Glenn Odekirk: A monoplane...
- Howard Hughes: A cantilevered monoplane. They're doing it in France. To the hell with the top wing and the struts...
- Glenn Odekirk: 550 Whitney Wasp engine...
- Howard Hughes: 100 octane fuel will give us a top horsepower of - what?
- Glenn Odekirk: Seven hundred.
- Howard Hughes: Squeeze it to a thousand and we got the fastest plane ever built.
- Glenn Odekirk: You know, I just gotta say... we've already spent over $200,000 rebuilding this plane.
- Howard Hughes: To the hell with it.
- [smiles]
- Howard Hughes: Tear it up, Odie.
- [Glenn takes a sledgehammer and annihilates the struts on the top wing; the top wing falls off]
- Howard Hughes: You know, sometimes I - I get these feelings, Katie. I get these ideas, these - crazy ideas about the - things that may not - things that may not really be there. Sometimes I truly fear that I'm - losing my mind. And if I did, it would - it would be like flying blind.