All advance signs indicated that The Outlaw would be either the best or the worst picture of the year. Its making cost $2,500,000. Its two young stars, full-breasted Jane Russell and slim Jack Buetel, had been ballyhooed to magazine cover fame for two years—and yet the U.S. had never seen them on the screen. Howard Hughes, the eccentric designer-aviator-producer, personally directed the picture and surrounded it with such provoking secrecy that not even the actors in it were allowed to see the finished product. Last fortnight The Outlaw had its premiere. What Hughes apparently had for his pains: a strong candidate for the flopperoo of all time.
In 1940 Hughes and his friend, Director Howard Hawks, who had helped him make Scarface eight years before, decided to collaborate in producing a Ben Hecht script-biography of Billy the Kid. For the chief roles Hughes insisted on new faces, specified the girl must be "primarily sexy." The Hughes lightning struck Californian Jane Russell, 19, a dentist's receptionist. Also struck: Texan Jack Beutel, 21, a studio hanger-on (Hughes changed his name to Buetel).
Hawks, no niggardly director, moved 250 actors and technicians to location in the Arizona desert, began to shoot, speeding rushes to Hughes in Los Angeles by Hughes's private plane. Deeply moved by these first samples, Hughes demanded that Hawks spend more lavishly. By second week's end Hawks had become so appalled at Hughes's extravagance that he resigned. Hughes took over himself, set out as if he intended to outdo Hell's Angels, on which he spent $4,000,000, got back $8,000,000. When M.G.M. scooped him by rushing out a picture called Billy the Kid (1941), Hughes was merely goaded to fresh expenditures.
An incredible perfectionist, solemnly eccentric Director Hughes exasperated his actors, once made veterans Thomas Mitchell and Walter Huston go through the same scene 26 times, after which Mitchell took off his hat, jumped on it and stalked away. All told, Hughes shot 450,000 feet of film (the complete picture: 10,200 feet). On the set, where shooting took place mostly at night (to allow Hughes to design planes for Henry J. Kaiser by day), he was usually unshaven, always unpredictable. He would phone his assistants at home at all hours and announce: "This is Mr. Hoyt." Often there would follow a long silence, broken finally when Hughes would bark briskly: "I just thought of something; I'll call you back later."
To keep his two novice stars in the public eye during the picture's long delay, Hughes hired Press Agent Russell Birdwell. Birdwell's solution: high-pressure exploitation of Miss Russell's flaring femininity. Result: some 60 magazine articles, innumerable news pictures. The Hays office helped by censoring one or two shots from The Outlaw. When the Hays office objected to a Buetel line, "You borrowed from me; now I borrowed your gal," Hughes changed the line to "Tit for tat." Hastily the Hays censor agreed the first version was O.K.
Fortnight ago Press Agent Birdwell shepherded 48 Hollywood reporters, columnists and fan-magazine writers (and their wives) to San Francisco to see The Outlaw's first public showing in prewar Hollywood premiere junket style.