In reply to John Paxton.

Possibly conservation, though the Royal HH was a fairly ubiquitous office machine, especially in newsrooms across America. All the President's Men (1976) depicts a Royal HH at Carl Bernstein's house though most in their newsroom depicted in the movie were Olympia SG3s. In the 1980s, I would suspect it wouldn't have been hard to source a room full of these from a prop house, so conservation of props probably wouldn't have been necessary beyond the fact that these are 35 pounds a pop. There were a small handful of different models in Fletch's newspaper office though. I did take it as a perceived "slight" that the reporter whose chair Fletch stole in the end was using a Underwood Touchmaster 5 or possibly a 6 which weren't the best machines of that time period, especially compared to the HH.

Typewriters were mentioned only occasionally and passingly throughout the Fletch series of books and only one make by name: an unused Remington in a police station. In the first book, which was adapted for the film, Fletch used an unnamed portable typewriter with a case which he carried to the beach to get statements by Sam and Gummy. It definitely didn't name a specific make or model in his home or office. But then, as an adaptation, the book and the movie are very different in both tone and execution.