Hughes Productions series (1920-1992) primarily details the production, advertising, and censorship for The Outlaw, a film directed by Howard Hughes. Materials include advertising and publicity, editing, legal, production and direction, story development, administrative, distribution, censorship, and financial records, as well as film soundtracks and records from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and United Artists Corporation. The series also contains ledgers, telegrams, newspaper clippings, music sheets and scores, reports, memoranda, agreements, correspondence, affidavits, analyses, screenplays, synopses, and story treatments. Black-and-white photographic prints and negatives include publicity, production, direction, set, and location scouting stills.
Corporate records contain administrative, legal, and financial reports, contracts, and correspondence pertaining to business operations. Also included are distribution materials from the MPAA and United Artists Corporation.
The Outlaw sub-series (1940-1975) contains material related to the development, production, and post-production of The Outlaw (1941), a Howard Hughes-directed and produced film. Materials include advertising and publicity, administrative, film soundtracks, legal, production and direction, and story development records pertaining to the film's production.
Advertising and publicity records in the sub-series detail the creation, revisions, arrangement, printing, and distribution of The Outlaw promotional material. Printing materials include flongs, or molds, used to produce metal printing plates for newspaper advertising. Posters in the sub-series, ranging from 40" by 60" to 100" by 200", vary in size according to their intended display locations including theater walls, building exteriors, and billboards. These records also contain newspaper and magazine clippings featuring The Outlaw advertising and premiere reactions from throughout the United States, as well as twenty-seven international countries.
Music scores include handwritten and typed comments and annotations from and to Victor Young. Photographs in the sub-series depict the film's principal and supporting cast, views of the film's premieres, and desert and mountainous regions throughout the southwest United States used for location scouting. Censorship materials consist of reports, correspondence, and newspaper and magazine clippings describing the public's reaction to The Outlaw and the attempts to cut parts of the film, or restrict its distribution in locations domestically and internationally.
The corporate records (1920-1990) for Hughes Productions consist of administrative, distribution, financial, and legal records, as well as records from the Motion Picture Association of America and United Artists Corporation and records pertaining to unproduced works.
Administrative records contain correspondence, as well as vault inventories, assets list, and personnel files. Distribution records contain agreements, correspondence, and information pertaining to The Outlaw's ban. Financial records include ledgers, correspondence, invoices, and international profit reports. Legal records include contracts for actors and screenwriters, as well as correspondence, agreements, and affidavits pertaining to loan information and court case proceedings.
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) records consist primarily of weekly reports from the MPAA detailing film title registration reports either held or withdrawn, as well as memoranda. United Artists Corporation records include contract analyses, settlement statements and ledgers detailing The Outlaw's domestic and international earnings. Unproduced works contain screenplays, synopses, story treatments, right's agreements, and correspondence pertaining to stories sent to Hughes Productions.