Product Description

From acclaimed director Lasse Hallstrom comes the unbelievable true story of Clifford Irving, the writer who faked the authorized autobiography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes and came close to pulling off the media scam of the 20th century. Irving’s elaborate attempts to substantiate his claims – forgery, plagiarism, and falsifying legal documents – spark a media frenzy and take Irving down a neurotic spiral as he begins to suspect a vast conspiracy including the U.S. government and corporate empires are plotting against him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24543 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2007-10-16
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Amazon.com
The Hoax is a happy surprise. Surprise because, for once, having a film's release date bumped back half a year didn't mean it's a dog. Happy because Lasse Hallström's dancing-on-eggshells comedy about a notorious literary scandal of the 1970s is bounteously entertaining, with more solid laughs and certainly slyer wit than, say, the latest Will Ferrell romp.

The subject is the world-shaking con an unsuccessful writer named Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) ran on some supposedly sharp cookies in the highest echelons of Manhattan publishing. Irving persuaded McGraw-Hill and Life magazine that ultra-reclusive tycoon Howard Hughes had selected him to transcribe his memoirs. It's pure balderdash, a desperate improvisation by a glib-talker who's perennially one jump ahead of the repo men. But the epic audacity of Irving's scam, the quicksilver way he weaves imaginary and accidental real-life details into beguiling patterns, and the legendary self-isolation of his supposed subject all conspire to keep the fiction afloat ... for a while.

This story isn't new to cinema, though few reviewers seem aware of that. In 1973 Orson Welles told it as part of F for Fake, a kaleidoscopic meditation on art, forgery, and the slipperiness of media, in which the real-life Irving was a semi-witting participant. But there's no need to beat up on The Hoax for being inferior to that postmodern masterpiece. Hallström and a deft cast do a killer job on the skyscraper corporate world where there are always more people in the room than there are useful purposes for them to serve (see especially Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, and Zjelko Ivanek); Marcia Gay Harden summons up a daft Viking serenity as spouse Edith Irving, a.k.a. "Helga R. Hughes"; and Alfred Molina rates a supporting Oscar nod for his balletic suspension between bemusement and panic attack as Dick Suskind, Irving's researcher accomplice and conscience-in-default. As for the con artist in chief, Richard Gere dials back the narcissism of previous performances to limn a schmuck just suave enough to seduce even himself. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

The 70's off to a rollicking start.
A struggling writer discovers that Hughes cannot appear in court to dispute a hoax because the reclusive billionaire is in a nasty dispute with TWA shareholders. So the hoax is born. Soon though, events turn raucous when the billionaire fails to appear to allegedly vouch for the autobiography, and then another hoaxed autobiography appears in print ahead of Irving's release. The mystery of who is hoaxing who surfaces when a box of scandalous files anonymously appears at the writer's home. The frenzied sensation draws the attention of darker forces in America. Apparently, someone has to know what would be included about Hughes and Nixon's brother, Donald, who had received unrepaid loans from Hughes in the 1960 campaign, and may have received more loans in 1972. Then suddenly the hoax unravels. Within within months, Nixon is re-elected, the Hughes-TWA dispute resolves, and Americans begin to learn of a third-rate burglarly called Watergate. The Hoax is an interesting chapter in American history.

Ramifications of a Hoax
Clifford Irving (Fake, Trial, Final Argument, The Spring) became a sort of national hero when he contrived to publish 'The Autobiography of Howard Hughes', a 400 page phony but well researched book that, while it was never published, did cause enough of a stir among the New York publishing cognoscenti and those surrounding the then President Richard Nixon that it now is recognized as a HOAX of writing that triggered the final discovery of the Watergate Scandal and the subsequent dethroning of Nixon. Those facts alone make this sometimes rather tepid film interesting enough to sit through. Screenwriter William Wheeler has adapted Irving's book into a study of the 1970s and Lasse Hallström gives it just the right balance between soft crime and strange comedy to keep it afloat.

Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) is down on his literary luck, searching for the right kind of story that will set is publisher Andrea Tate (Hope Davis) on fire. Irving wife Edith (Marcia Gay Harden) is an active painter and doesn't give Irving the support he gets from his pal Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina), but on the messy floor of Edith's studio is a rag magazine with a cover picture of the mysterious Howard Hughes and bingo! up comes the idea for an 'autobiography' of the wizard as confided to Irving and researched by Suskind. That is really the plot then, how these two men squirm around lies and good luck to forge papers and gain the favor of the publishers. Of course it all caves in, but in the publicity about the book Nixon's secrets are revealed and the rest is history.

Gere, Molina, Harden, Davis, Stanley Tucci, Julie Delphy and Eli Wallach add immeasurably to the success of the film. No, it is not a heavy story, but the scandalous years of the 1970s are treated realistically and provide a lot of memories, both good and bad, about how we all changed in that post Vietnam time. Worth watching for that! Grady Harp, October 07

Amusing recreation of the 1970's deception
Director Lasse Hallstrom's dedicated re-enactment of Clifford Irving's memoirs of his fraudulent autobiography of mysterious, antisocial millionaire Howard Hughes, "The Hoax", is his most impressive work since the 2000 film "Chocolat". Using film footage of the Hughes and also President Nixon and the tumultuous times of the 70's, he creates a sometimes comedic look back at this memorable scandal.

Richard Gere does well in his portrayal of struggling author Irving, a man obviously devoid of a conscience, who conjures up the idea of faking a Hughes autobiography. He figures that the reclusive Hughes would never surface to dispute the veracity of Irving's well researched but fictitious novel. Alfred Molina playing Gere's neurotic sidekick and co-conspirator Dick Susskind is magnificent in his role, giving the movie a comic flair. Marcia Gay Harden with dyed blonde tresses and a disturbing foreign accent was annoying as Irving's wife Edith.

Hallstrom did well in demostrating the extent of Irving's delusions, actually believing himself to be in contact with Hughes and his minions. 91 year old Eli Wallach, always a treat to see on the screen, was delightful playing old codger Noah Dietrich, once a right hand man of Hughes. The movie was insightful in tying in the effect of Irving's hoax, the machinations of Hughes himself who actually communicated disavowing Irving's chicanery and important current events and the day.