It was May 1946. "The Outlaw" -- Howard Hughes' controversial western -- was set to open at the Loew's State movie theater downtown.

Three Houstonians, however, didn't want their fellow residents to see it.

One Magnolia Park couple, Theodore Huntington and his wife, Florence, along with a civic club leader, appealed to the city to stop its Houston debut, based on the belief that it was an immoral film.

This was nothing new when it came to "The Outlaw," a laughable mess of a film that throws together Wild West figures Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid with sultry Rio McDonald, played by Jane Russell. For years, religious groups and civic organizations had protested the film's advertising and the movie's obvious focus on Russell's figure. Much had been written about Russell, Humble's own Hughes and that infamous underwire bra he created to emphasize her bust (which she later claimed she never wore).

As early as 1941, Hughes had waged a battle with the Motion Picture Association of America and various censor boards over the film's content. The controversy continued when the film was finally screened in San Francisco in 1943. But "The Outlaw" would soon sit on the shelf as Hughes, according to the American Film Institute, focused his attention on airplane manufacturing during the war years.

Three years later, "The Outlaw" was now appearing at various theaters across the U.S. -- whenever state and city censors allowed it.

The Huntingtons' complaint to Houston City Council fell to Fred Ankenman, acting city censor. Thinking ahead, he contacted theater management and told them to prepare for the possibility of a preview screening the day before its Houston premiere if pressure grew to censor the film, according to the Houston Post.

(Concerns in other cities about racy advertising used to promote the film weren't evident here as such ads were not used in Houston, the manager of the Loew's told the Post.)

As for that unnamed civic club leader's complaint? Supposedly this person objected to a "lurid bedroom scene" in the film.

"I checked with the manager of the theater," Ankenman told the Post, "and he assured me there was no such scene in the show."

Alas, no one else had a problem with "The Outlaw" so its debut here went on as scheduled.

All that controversy apparently paid off. On a Thursday morning, May 16, a sold-out crowd gathered at the Loew's State for the first screening.

From Mildred Stockard's article in the Houston Chronicle that evening:

With all of the advance publicity on "The Outlaw," the picture set a new opening-day attendance record. For the first time, the record established by "Trader Horn" back in 1931, fails to hold. The theatre had to be opened half an hour ahead of schedule Thursday morning to accommodate the crowds. By 11 o'clock, when the first show was flashed on the screen, there was not a vacant seat in the theatre and long lines formed at the box office for the second showing, two hours later.

But was the movie any good?

"Dramatically it is the sheerest of nonsense, a piece of all but incredible boggling -- a caricature of the Western melodrama and in general a travesty of acting," wrote the Post's Hubert Roussel. "Any observer who has gathered a little knowledge of plays, or at least a degree of maturity, will find the show an unintentional but uproarious comedy."

Stockard said it fell short of its hype.

"The picture is not worth all of the controversy stirred up over it," she wrote. "Aside from a few sexy scenes, which are much milder than the public has been led to believe, the picture is just a long, drawn-out, not too exciting Western."

Bad reviews weren't going to keep curious movie goers away though. "The Outlaw" was held over for two more weeks at the Loew's State. In all, more than 110,000 Houstonians turned out to see it during its initial run.