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Howard Hughes, Caddo / United Artists, 1930. Begun silent in 1927 with Greta Nissen; Hughes reshot the talkie scenes with Jean Harlow after sound arrived. Ben Lyon and James Hall are Oxford brothers who fly, one of them into a Zeppelin raid. Hughes directed after Luther Reed quit, bought a fleet of period aircraft, and, per the AFI, spent about $4 million, a record the trades kept repeating. A two-color ballroom reel sits inside a mostly tinted war picture. Harlow’s first real part. The flying is the expense. The brothers are the plot.
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Three years, a fleet of period aircraft, about four million dollars, and pilots killed. Hughes began it silent, reshot it with sound, and replaced his lead with Jean Harlow. The Zeppelin raid is the sequence. The cost is in the credits nobody reads.
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