The Hoax

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The Hoax
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Lasse Hallström
Produced by	Mark Gordon Bob Yari Betsy Beers Leslie Holleran Joshua Maurer
Written by	William Wheeler
Starring	Richard Gere Alfred Molina Marcia Gay Harden
Music by	Carter Burwell
Cinematography	Oliver Stapleton
Editing by	Andrew Mondshein
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date(s)	April 6, 2007
Running time	115 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Gross revenue	$11,772,183
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Hoax is a 2007 American drama film based on the true story of American novelist Clifford Irving's falsified autobiography about the seclusive billionaire aviator Howard Hughes. The film is directed by Lasse Hallström and written by William Wheeler. Actor Richard Gere portrays Clifford Irving, and Alfred Molina portrays Irving's associate Dick Suskind.

In July 2005, filming began in Puerto Rico and New York on The Hoax with Gere in the role of Irving. This film is loosely based on Irving's hoax, but Irving once said of the film project, "I had nothing to do with this movie, and it had very little to do with me." However, against his wishes, his name appeared in credit lists as "technical consultant." The film opened April 6, 2007. On March 6, 2007, Hyperion reissued Clifford Irving's The Hoax in a movie tie-in edition.

1 Cast
2 Plot
3 Reception
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Cast

Richard Gere as Clifford Irving
Alfred Molina as Dick Suskind
Marcia Gay Harden as Edith Irving
Hope Davis as Andrea Tate
Julie Delpy as Nina Van Pallandt
Stanley Tucci as Shelton Fisher
Dan Fleury as Robert Brenly, Life Magazine journalist
Eli Wallach as Noah Dietrich

[edit] Plot

Clifford Irving is meeting with executives at McGraw-Hill discussing his latest book. His last effort, on an art fraudster, has sold poorly. The board are more impressed by this effort, and Irving is led to believe that at last he has his breakout work.

He celebrates, only to then be informed that a magazine editor had read and rubbished the work, and McGraw-Hill have now decided not to publish it, leaving Irving extremely bitter. Aware he is near the end of the road with his publishing career, Irving realizes that not even his friendship with Andrea Tate, one of the executives at McGraw-Hill, can help him anymore.

Along with his friend and researcher, Richard Suskind he takes a holiday somewhere warm, only to be ejected from his hotel at 1 a.m. when Howard Hughes arrives, and demands the entire building be emptied of guests. Returning to New York he comes into a meeting with his publishers to find he has been fobbed off onto one of the assistants. Irving storms into the board room and announces he has the "book of the century," threatening to take it elsewhere if McGraw-Hill is not interested.

Irving struggles to come up with a suitable topic for his grandiose book-of-the-century claim, rejecting numerous suggestions from Dick Suskind. It is then he catches sight of a magazine cover and article about the secret world of Howard Hughes and decides that this is the book that the world wants.

He approaches his former publishers and pretends to have been summoned by Hughes and selected to write his autobiography. Handwriting samples wrongly conclude that this is genuine, and the board strikes a $500,000 deal for the book, accepting the slightly bizarre conditions imposed as the eccentricities of a reclusive billionaire.

For Clifford Irving it comes close to a perfect crime. Hughes is so reclusive and wary of legal action, that he is unlikely to ever try and sue Irving. His eccentrities also mean that denials by Hughes on the book's authenticity may well be treated as misdirection. The resulting book will generate a massive sum of money, with more coming through serialisation rights, all of which will be his, not having to share it with Hughes.

Irving is currently undergoing marital problems with Edith Irving, an artist. He had recently had an affair with Nina Van Pallandt, an actress and wife of a millionaire. He assures Edith he will be faithful, and leaves to begin his research. He spends hours using speeches and other recordings to create an authenticity that will fool even the experts.

At one point during the writing of his work, a box of documents arrives mysteriously. They contain explosive information listing a loan to Nixon’s brother, seemingly tying him to the incumbent President. Because of the postmark he assumes it to be from Hughes, who now has bad blood towards the President.

As the publication date draws closer, Irving steps up his pretense, including staging an aborted meeting between Hughes and the publishers. However, denials start to filter out from Hughes’ headquarters that he is involved in any way with the book. The pressure begins to build, but the publishers are convinced it is a genuine work. Irving's script has been so convincingly researched, and tinged with real and very secret disclosures, that it convinces the experts to be genuine.

Irving begins to have increasingly grandiose notions, including fantasies about being kidnapped by Hughes's people and taken blindfolded to Mexico, where he is ordered to put the disclosure about Nixon into the work, before being thrown into a swimming pool to threaten him. This is later revealed to be a fantasy, in a drunken stupor.

Finally, Hughes goes on air to deny the book is real – his last ‘public’ appearance. The police move in and arrest Clifford Irving, his wife and assisting. As he is driven away Irving scrawls HOAX on the window of the police car, finally admitting that it had all been a con. They later all received short jail terms.

The film is very ambiguous at its end about whether Irving had indeed been used as a tool by Hughes to try and warn off Nixon, though if anything, erring on the side that the sudden raft of legal decisions in favor of Hughes in a short span of time were more than just a coincidence. It adds that the 'hoax' fueled Nixon's paranoia with Hughes, and led directly to the Watergate scandal: The burglars were attempting to recover documents they believed held information of the financial dealings between Nixon and Hughes.

[edit] Reception

The Hoax had a limited opening in 235 theaters in the United States and Canada on April 6, 2007, earning $1,449,320 over the opening weekend. The film later had a wide opening in 1,069 theaters in the United States and Canada on April 20, 2007. The Hoax showed in the theaters for eight weeks, closing on May 31, 2007. The film grossed $7,164,995 in the United States and Canada and $4,607,188 in other territories for a worldwide total of $11,772,183.^[1]

At the film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, The Hoax received a 86% Fresh rating from 139 film critics.^[2] On the similar website Metacritic, the film had a metascore of 70 out of 100 from 37 reviews, considered generally favorable reviews.^[3]