Howard Hawks

Did a search on the forum but got no results. Seriously we have Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick but no Howard Hawks?!?!

1896-1977

Howard Hawks ranked:

1. Scarface
2. Red River
3. The Big Sleep
4. Rio Bravo

I must watch Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. Though rom-coms arent my kind of thing... Any other recommendations?

To Have and Have Not, Sergeant York, Ball of Fire.

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When you add it up, doesn't seem like a whole lot of movies, does it?

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Well, I should have added Land of the Pharaohs, The Big Sky, Gentleman Prefer Blondes, and the original The Thing. Lots of people really like Only Angels Have Wings and Twentieth Century. I really like Come and Get It which he codirected with William Wyler. If you count films where he wasn't actually credited as director, I've seen 34 (14 on the big screen), but you have to start somewhere.

With all due respect, Howard Hawks films are GREATER than Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick films combined and I'm serious.

Let's hear a serious explanation then.

I've been on a bit of a spree, and I'd rank his films so far as something like:

1. Rio Bravo
   
   
2. Only Angels Have Wings
   
   
3. His Girl Friday
   
   
4. Ceiling Zero
   
   
5. Hatari!
   
   
6. Red River
   
   
7. Scarface
   
   
8. The Big Sleep
   
   
9. Bringing Up Baby
   
   
10. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
    
    
11. The Thing From Another World

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I've been meaning to start watching some Howard Hawks films. So far, the only one I've seen is El Dorado, and that was only cause I was able to catch it on the Western channel. I've been wanting to watch the original Scarface for a while now.

Well El Dorado is supposed to be a remake of Rio Bravo, and that's my favourite film of his, so I would recommend watching that. Scarface is also great, I don't love it as much as his others film, but in terms of film making its fantastic. What's great about Hawks is that his films span all sorts of genres yet they're all distinctly Hawksian, more people need to watch his stuff.

Donald's rankings are all messed up. They look like bluedeed's. Seriously.

1 to 4, and then 5 to 10 are pretty interchangeable to be fair. They're all great. How come you don't seem to like Only Angels Have Wings Mark? That and Ceiling Zero which I had to buy a French release DVD for surprised me the most, two of the most tense and touching films I've watched, and all his action sequences (flying) are superb.

Edit: I'm probably underrating Gentlemen Prefer Blondes which I enjoyed a lot but it didn't seem to have the level of mastery of his other films, I also haven't seen The Big Sleep and The Thing in ages. But as I say, it's hard to divide a lot of them. most of them are about for me.

This is how I'd rank what I've seen so far:

1. Rio Bravo
2. The Big Sleep
3. His Girl Friday


The Big Sleep maybe I should revisit and His Girl Friday was pretty annoying, Cary Grant is fantastic in it though as usual.

At least you got the #1 right! But yeah I can see how His Girl Friday could be annoying, it doesn't give you much time to breath, the dialogue is everywhere, like everyone's firing off a a machine gun, but I loved it. Cary Grant I think is the best part too, I love him already but in every role he seems to impress me more, especially in his younger days, his comic timing is great. I think you'd like Only Angels Have Wings and Red River, I can't imagine anyone disliking them.

For what it's worth:

Howard Hawks made a lot of fine films.

I've seen these:
1966 El Dorado
1964 Man's Favorite Sport?
1962 Hatari!
1959 Rio Bravo
1955 Land of the Pharaohs
1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
1952 Monkey Business
1949 I Was a Male War Bride
1946 The Big Sleep
1944 To Have and Have Not
1943 Air Force
1941 Ball of Fire
1941 Sergeant York
1940 His Girl Friday
1939 Only Angels Have Wings
1938 Bringing Up Baby
1935 Barbary Coast
1932 Scarface

Man's Favorite Sport?(1964) is the funniest performance I've seen by Rock Hudson.

Land of the Pharaohs (1955) might not be the tighest story but man oh man the scenes with 1000s of extras building the pyramids are amazing.

I Was a Male War Bride (1949) and His Girl Friday (1940)Are two of the funniest films I've seen with Cary Grant.

To Have and Have Not (1944) We all know about this film right?

Ball of Fire (1941) Barbara Stanwyck sizzles in this one, great song number in it too. And no it's not a musical.

Barbary Coast (1935) This is my favorite Hawks film.

My Rankings/Ratings:

Rio Bravo
His Girl Friday
The Big Sleep
Red River
Bringing Up Baby
Monkey Business
Only Angels Have Wings
To Have and Have Not
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
The Thing From Another World
Scarface
Ball of Fire
Rio Lobo

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Mark finds Only Angels and Rio Bravo to be very overrated and I suspect for reasons similar to each other and to why I love both of them. I don't often agree with Tarantino (especially when it comes to Ford) but I agree with him when he called Rio Bravo the ultimate hang out movie.

I really need to revisit Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I didn't care for it much, but a lot of people I know really love it and consider it a predecessor to Jacques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating which is fantastic. Remember that The Thing is officially directed by Christian Nyby and the extend to which Hawks directed it is uncertain. While I find a lot of it to be very Hawksian (the utopian male society, for one), I don't think it fully qualifies as a Hawks picture. Nyby was an editor on many of Hawks' films so it wouldn't surprise me at all if The Thing was Nyby putting on his best Hawks impression.

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Mubi

Interesting choice, I should go see it now

Come and Get It is a big win for Hawks.

Meehhh howard hawks generally doesn't do it for me

I Was a Male War Bride - one of his better flicks
His Girl Friday was good too


I waited for a couple years to watch Ball of Fire and while it's not bad, it was a little too silly for me. I watched it on my birthday 4-5 days ago and was hoping for a little more quality time with barbara stanwyck

god i am a huge ****ing nerd