Howard Hawks

[radiojane]

My dvd copy of Bringing up Baby features a really great interview with Howard Hawks from the 1970s. I love his work, and his influence is evident everywhere (although if I hear Cybill Shepherd use the phrase "Hawksian" in reference to Moonlighting one more time, I may stick her head under Octotard's stomach flap and suffocate her), and he was such an interesting and important filmmaker, I thought perhaps we could spare some space for him here on FAD. Did you know he was once Norma Shearer's brother in law?

1896-1977

Born in Goshen, Indiana, Hawks was the first-born child of Frank W. Hawks and the former Helen Howard. After the birth of his brother, Kenneth Neil Hawks, on August 12, 1899, the family moved to Neenah, Wisconsin. Shortly afterward they moved again, to Southern California.
Hawks attended high school in Glendora, and then moved to New Hampshire to attend Phillips Exeter Academy from 1912-1914. After graduation, Hawks moved on to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he majored in mechanical engineering. During the summers of 1916 and 1917, Hawks worked on some early movies, interning for the Famous Players-Lasky Studio. After graduation he joined the United States Army Air Service during World War I. After the war, he worked at a number of jobs: race-car driver, aviator, designer in an aircraft factory.

By 1924 he had returned to Hollywood and entered the movie industry. He chummed with barn stormers and pioneer aviators at Rogers Airport in Los Angeles, getting to know men like Moye Stephens. Hawks wrote his first screenplay, Tiger Love, in 1924 and he directed his first film, The Road to Glory, in 1925. Hawks reworked the scripts of most of films he directed without taking official credit for his work. Howard Hawks directed a total of eight silent films, including Fazil in 1928.
He made the transition to sound without difficulty. During the 1930s he freelanced and was not contracted to a studio. For Howard Hughes he directed Scarface (1932); for RKO, Bringing Up Baby (1938) and for Columbia, Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and His Girl Friday (1940).
His film, Sergeant York (1941), starring Gary Cooper, was the highest-grossing film of its year and won two Academy Awards (Best Actor and Best Editing).
In 1944, Hawks filmed the first of two films starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not, which was the first film pairing of the couple. He followed that with The Big Sleep (1946).
In 1948, he filmed Red River, with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. In 1951, he directed (but declined credit for) The Thing from Another World.[1] In 1953, he filmed Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which featured Marilyn Monroe singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend."
1959's Rio Bravo, starring John Wayne, Dean Martin and Walter Brennan, was remade twice by Hawks - in 1967 (El Dorado) and again in 1970 (Rio Lobo). Both starred John Wayne.

Hawks was married three times, to Athole Shearer (a sister of movie actress Norma Shearer), Nancy Gross (later and better known as Slim Keith, she was the mother of his daughter, Kitty Hawks, a noted interior designer), and Dee Hartford (an actress whose real name was Donna Higgins). His brothers were director/writer Kenneth Neil Hawks and film producer William Bettingger Hawks.
Hawks was known to make anti-semitic comments, including in front of Jewish actress Lauren Bacall, who kept her Jewish identity a secret from Hawks and who did not call him on his hateful comments, which she now regrets.

Hawks was versatile as a director, filming comedies, dramas, gangster films, science fiction, film noir, and Westerns. Hawks' own functional definition of what constitutes a "good movie" is revealing of his no-nonsense style: "Three great scenes, no bad ones." Hawks also defined a good director as "someone who doesn't annoy you".
While Hawks was not sympathetic to feminism, he popularized the Hawksian woman archetype, which could be considered a prototype of the modern post-feminist movement.

His directorial style and the use of natural, conversational dialogue in his films were cited a major influence on many noted filmmakers, including Robert Altman, John Carpenter, and Quentin Tarantino.
Although his work was not initially taken seriously by British critics of the Sight and Sound circle, he was venerated by French critics associated with Cahiers du Cinema, who intellectualised his work in a way Hawks himself was moderately amused by, and he was also admired by more independent British writers such as Robin Wood and, to a lesser extent, Raymond Durgnat.
Critic Leonard Maltin labeled Hawks "the greatest American director who is not a household name," noting that, while his work may not be as well known as Ford, Welles, or DeMille, he is no less a talented filmmaker.

He was nominated for Best Director in 1942 for Sergeant York, but he received his only Oscar in 1975 as an Honorary Award from the Academy.
Scarface (1932), was rated "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress.
Bringing up Baby (1938), listed number ninety-seven on American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, His Girl Friday (1940), and listed #19 on American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Howard Hawks has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street.

[TheMysterian]

It's hard to believe that he only has an "honorary Oscar",his work was great, Red River is a true classic and one of his best!

[Vlad]

One of the cream of old Hollywood directors. Enjoyed many of his films.

[Nicki]

Loved his wife Slim Keith's book. She later went out to marry Leland Hayward but I think Howard was her first marriage.

[Northern Lights]

So many good movies, a great director!

[RogerV]

If I recall correctly, he got fired from his next picture because Bringing Up Baby did poorly at the boxoffice. This is ironic, because I think it's one of my alltime favorite comedies, and I believe when it was re-released in the early 1950's it did much better.

Interesting this came up, because I visited a vintage car dealer earlier today and they had a Ford "woody" station wagon for sale. I remarked to my friend "all we need is Kate Hepburn, Cary Grant, and a leopard to make it complete!"

[Giada]

Terrific film history for him, and varied, from film noir to comedy, and westerns. Loved Bringing Up Baby.

[milke492]

Can post pictures of your wigs here. They can be lace wigs, lace front wigs, synthetic wigs or custom lace wigs. Show us what your working with.

[Bidmor]

Oh man, Hawks made some of my favs:
"His Girl Friday" was a neat twist on the Broadway play and the 1931 film "The Front Page" in which the reporter was male...Cary Grant as the editor and Rosalind Russell the reporter and the editor's ex-wife. "Front Page" was re-made in 1974 with Walter Matthau playing the editor and Jack Lemmon playing the reporter, directed by Billy Wilder and was set in the period as the 1931 film.
"Red River" loosely based on Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving all in one character played by John Wayne. My geographical connection to that film is that twice during the film, driving the herd up through Palo Pinto was mentioned, which is the seat of my Texas county and the Goodnight-Loving trail ran through here.
"Bringing Up Baby" one of my two favorite screwball comedies, the other is "Arsenic And Old Lace"...both with Cary Grant. Supposedly, the modern meaning of "gay" was taken from a line in "Baby".
"To Have And Have Not"...the famous hot whistle scene between the then 19-ish Bacall and the much older Bogey, and the final scene Bacall erotically swinging her hips to the music in that black and white checkered dress suit.
"The Big Sleep"...it appears to me Bacall wore that same checkered suit from "To Have" in one scene in Bogey's office. According to TCM's Robert Osborne, Raymond Chandler's book dealt with drugs but the studio wouldn't have that so they skirted around it by doing the scene where Phillip Marlowe (Bogart) finds Bacall's sister stoned out of her mind, sitting in front of a freshly murdered man.
"Sergeant York"...what else can you say about Gary Cooper's performance.

In radiojane's post, it states that Hawks developed the conversational style of speaking lines. Orson Welles took that one step further by having actors stepping on each others' lines, as happens in a natural conversation.

[radiojane]

Originally Posted by Bidmor

"To Have And Have Not"...the famous hot whistle scene between the then 19-ish Bacall and the much older Bogey, and the final scene Bacall erotically swinging her hips to the music in that black and white checkered dress suit.
"The Big Sleep"...it appears to me Bacall wore that same checkered suit from "To Have" in one scene in Bogey's office. According to TCM's Robert Osborne, Raymond Chandler's book dealt with drugs but the studio wouldn't have that so they skirted around it by doing the scene where Phillip Marlowe (Bogart) finds Bacall's sister stoned out of her mind, sitting in front of a freshly murdered man.


In radiojane's post, it states that Hawks developed the conversational style of speaking lines. Orson Welles took that one step further by having actors stepping on each others' lines, as happens in a natural conversation.

Welles and Hawks were both excellent at breaking new ground in film. Hawks was slightly less bombastic and much more successful.

The Chandler books were racy... I've read quite a few, but those movies were amazing. And to have and have not. That was sex on a stick I tell you.!

[Bidmor]

Originally Posted by radiojane

And to have and have not. That was sex on a stick I tell you.!

Yeah, and that movie was made post Hollywood code...Hawks pushed the sexual element to the censor's limit on that one, although still tame compared to pre-code films such as 1933's "Baby Face"...a Wild Bill Wellman film...with Barbara Stanwyck, whose character is forced by her father to prostitute herself (dear old dad takes all the money) and incest is plainly suggested. She gets fed up with screwing guys and getting nothing so she leaves and goes to the big city where she determines to screw her way to the top, which is plainly depicted of each man she seduces...but we never see any "love making".

But I drift OT here.

[salvatore1989]

One of my favorite directors

[KELT]

[cindyt]

RIP Mr. Hawks

[Jack-O-Lantern]

Hawks' fingerprints are all over The Thing, still the best sci-fi/horror film ever. Wonder if he really did direct it?

Kind of like Spielberg with 'Poltergeist'--producer credit only, but again so many similarities to actual directorial efforts it was obvious he did more than just produce.

[salvatore1989]

I knew I shouldn't have went to college. Ahh the life of a Hollywood director!

[KELT]

Guess that English wasn't your major ?

[Meliss9900]

My favorite Hawks movie is "Hatari" with John Wayne, Red Buttons and Hardy Kreuger.

Melissa