Howard Hawks

May 12, 1997

Hawks, a great visual storyteller, was born on May 30, 1896. He started in films working as a propman for Lasky-Players studio, during the years 1916 and 1917. He served for a brief period in the army during WWI, before becoming a producer for director Allan Dwan's films. Though he started directing in 1925, it would not be until 1932 that Hawks would make a big impression in the film community. His first major film, Scarface (1932), a study of a brutal killer in the bootlegging business, was considered the most violent film of it's period and one of the best gangster pictures of the 1930's.

After this chilling breakthrough film, Hawks turned to comedies, making films that combined amazing sight gags with fast-paced wordplay. Films like Twentieth Century (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday and Ball of Fire (1941) were known to have not only great comedy, but talented actresses like Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck as strong-willed independent women, who were usually much smarter than the men (something that was rarely common in movies of the day).

It seemed that every genre Hawks got into, he came out with successes for each of them. War films like Only Angels Have Wings and Sergeant York showed indepth portraits of men at war. His spirited teaming of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall on To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, managed to further his reputation. His career started to lag during the 1950's, with only an occasional hit such as the science fiction story, The Thing (1951) and the Marilyn Monroe vehicle, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). He regained his status as a talented director in 1959, with the first of a series of beautifully tongue-in-cheek westerns starring John Wayne (which included Rio Bravo (1959), El Dorado (1967) and Rio Lobo (1970)). He retired from directing in 1970. It was only after his death on December 26, 1977, that he began earning credit from film buffs and critcs as an auteur and outstanding director of adventure films. Eve n the films of his that were not of the adventure genre, usually had some rousing element of adventure integrated into the rest of the picture, be it comedy, science fiction, drama, crime or western.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 10: 9

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