The Fedora Chronicles - The Golden Age of Hollywood: Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks (1896 - 1977)

Howard Hawks was a competent director of a variety of films in many different genres. These ranged from gangster movies Scarface (1932) to thrillers The Big Sleep (1946) to war films Sergeant York (1941), to action drama Only Angels Have Wings (1939), to westerns Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959), to comedies Twentieth Century (1934) and Bringing Up Baby (1938) and even an occasional musical like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

No other director boosted the careers of so many stars. He turned Paul Muni into a star with Scarface (1932) and demonstrated Carole Lombard's qualities as a screwball comedienne in Twentieth Century (1934). He discovered New York model Lauren Bacall and gave Montgomery Clift his first big break in Red River (1948).

Despite the breadth of his work Hawks' characters had many similarities. They were generally self assured wiscracking types, his movies have wonderful dialogue. In His Girl Friday (1940) he created a comedy which is probably the fastest of all time, he loved overlapping dialogue and male and female characters who were a match for each other, here Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, later Bogart and Bacall. His women in particular are sophisticated and clever, in no way are they heroines there just to be saved.

Rio Bravo (1959) was Hawks' last great film, he enjoyed the story of the drunken sheriff so much he reworked it in two further weaker westerns : El Dorado (1967) and Rio Lobo (1970).