Howard Hawks

by Todd McCarthy

Howard Hawks is now regarded as one of the greatest directors ever to work in Hollywood. His career stretched from the silent era through the seventies and left an indelible stamp on American cinema. A filmmaker of incomparable versatility, he made the landmark gangster film Scarface, aviation classics (The Dawn Patrol, Only Angels Have Wings, Air Force), several of the best screwball comedies (Twentieth Century, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday), an immortal war story (Sergeant York), two sizzling Bogart-Bacall melodramas (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep), a dazzling musical (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), and several towering Westerns (Red River, Rio Bravo, El Dorado). He was Hollywood's leading starmaker, having discovered or given important roles to Lauren Bacall, Montgomery Clift, Carole Lombard, Rita Hayworth, Frances Farmer, Jane Russell, Paul Muni, Joan Collins, James Caan, and Angie Dickinson. Howard Hawks was the filmmaking partner of Howard Hughes; the drinking buddy and wo