HOWARD HUGHES - CONTRACT SIGNED 04/28/1928 CO-SIGNED BY: JOSEPH W. ENGEL - HFSID 274929

HOWARD HUGHES
Hughes loans actor Louis Wolheim to Samuel Goldwyn for The Awakening.
Document signed: "Howard Hughes", 3p, 8½x12½. Los Angeles, California, 1928 April 28. Hughes' Caddo Company loans actor Louis Wolheim to Samuel Goldwyn Inc. to appear in a film titled The Innocent. (The film was released later that year by United Artists as The Awakening.) Signed on p3. Also signed by a representative of Samuel Goldwyn Inc. (name illegible). Some dates added in ink (unknown hand). Accompanied by typed letter signed "Jos. W. Engel" on letterhead The Caddo Company, dated 1928 May 12, delaying by one day the period of Wolheim's loan-out so that he can spend an extra day filming The Racket. Larger than life HOWARD HUGHES (1905-1976), movie mogul, aircraft designer and builder, political intrigue, and the world's richest man at the time of his death, dashing lothario turned ultra-eccentric recluse, continues to fascinate, as evidenced by a recent film biography (The Aviator, 2004), and even a film about a fake biography (The Hoax, 2007). JOSEPH W. ENGEL (1883-1939), a movie executive, was production manager on Hughes's air combat extravaganza, Hell's Angels (1930). He went on to produce many films for Fox, mostly Westerns, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Engels' Hollywood home was the scene of Rudolf Valentino's 1919 marriage to Jean Acker, who left him on the wedding night and never returned. LOUIS WOLHEIM (1880-1931) who starred on Broadway and played heavies in silent films, was emerging in the talkie era as a tough guy with a good heart (All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930), when cancer cut short his life. The Racket, featuring Wolheim, was the first American gangster film. Even though The Awakening was nominated for an Oscar (Best Comedy Screenplay), it is now considered a lost film. No copies of it are known to exist. Lightly creased and toned. Otherwise, fine condition.