30 Years of Brilliance: 1930-1959
Howard Hawks spent his early years racing cars professionally and flew planes in the Army Air Corps in Worlld War I. Both of these interests surfaced in his films. He made his directorial debut with 'The Road to Glory' in 1926 then drew on hiw flying experience during the war for 'The Dawn Patrol' in 1930. The Crowd Roars' in 1932 has James Cagney as a racing-car driver in a movie that benefits greatly from Hawks's personal knowledge of this milieu. In 'Scarface' in 1932, a gangster film that has become a classic, Paul Muni gives a masterly performance as a thinly disguised Al Capone.'Twentieth Century' in 1934 is a dazzlingly energetic screwball comedy.
Hawks had his failures, too. 'Viva Villa!' in 1934 was an ill-fated biopic of the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Vila, and Hawks was replaced as director by Jack Conway. but i n the space of a few yers at the end of the 1930's, Hawks directed a series of enduring masterpieces. 'Bringing Up Baby' in 1938 is unsurpassed among Hoywood comedies; 'Only Angels Have Wings' in 1939 is the best of Hawks's flying pictures; and 'Sergeant York' in 1941 stars Gary Cooper as a World War I hero, a performance that won him an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Through the 1940's Hawks explored new genres with equal success. He teamed a young Lauren Bacall with Humphrey Bogart in a romantic thriller based on an Ernest Hemingway novel, 'To Have and Have Not' in 1944. So successful was the partnership that Hawks teamed them again in the 'The Big Sleep' in 1946. Two years later Hawks ventured into the Western genre with 'Red River'. He returned to comedy with 'I Was a Male War Bride' in 1949, starring Cary Grant in drag.
Hawks's films present, for the most part, a masculine world in which an elite aband of heroes unite in the achievement of a goal. Women can be admitted to this circle, but only if they can keep up with the pace and maintain the necessary sangfroid. His films are simply and efficiently made, all the focus being on the presentation of story and character. Suave in appearance and something of a ladies man, Hawks gave little away in his public persona, preferring to let his films speak for thimselves. But in the 1950's his work was championed by an inluential group of critics writing for the French journal 'Cahiers du Cinema', who included Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut and eventually the quality of his films was recognized.
In the 1960's, Hawks's powers declined, though 'Man's Favorite Sport?' in 1964 is an amusing comedy. 'El Dorado' in 1966, another Western, united Wayne and Robert Mitchum in what is virtually a remake of 'Rio Bravo'. By then, Hawks was finding finance difficult to come by, and consequently could not attract the same quality of stars, forcing him to make 'Red Line 7000' in 1965, a return to the racing car milieu of his youth, with a cast of unknowns. But Wayne, loyal as ever, returned to the fold for Hawks's last movie, 'Rio Lobo in 1970.
