Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood Read Free Page B

own life; he was stoic but reckless, reserved but excessive; he was celebratedbut little known; he was a pragmatist but a poet; and he had the mind of an engineer but the subconscious of an artist.
    He was, above all, a modern artist. Of all the classical Hollywood directors, he is the one whose work has dated the least, for whom no excuses or explanations need be made. His visual style was straightforward, unmannered, unrooted in a specific era except for that of the classicalHollywood cinema in the most general sense. His lack of interest in topical matters, politics, social issues, and the like also serves to liberate him from the concerns of the times in which he worked, except, again, in the broadestsense of dealing with existing conditions such as Prohibition and World War II. What decisively set Hawks apart from 98 percent of his contemporaneous filmmakers washis complete lack of sentimentality. At every opportunity, he cut against conventional expectations in emotional moments and had acute antennae for anything that could be considered soft, schmaltzy, cloying, or indulgent.
    Much of this difference stemmed from his female characters, who, in so many cases, talked back; were at least as smart as the men; refused to be condescended to; wore uniforms,smartly tailored outfits, or pants more often than dresses; were not used as ornaments or mere objects of men’s desires; and didn’t simply want to get married and have kids. Putting aside for the moment the ongoing debate over how truly liberated Hawks’s women were, it remains indisputable that they represent a uniquely vibrant, free-spirited, and intelligent group, not only in Hollywood termsbut by any standard. The frankness with which male-female attraction was presented, the feeling of mutual respect and equality-as-ideal that is generated between the best of Hawks’s couples, represents the most moving thing in his work and would play as a model of contemporary sexual relations in any era. Although several of his best films conclude with a couple getting together after having hurdledmany obstacles, Hawks always avoided the climactic romantic clinch, the typical happy ending. The last moments of
Only Angels Have Wings
and
To Have and Have Not
, for example, show the central couples embarking on a “happy” future, giving the films upbeat endings that provide great audience satisfaction. When one deeply considers the circumstances, however, it is hard to imagine a prolonged, satisfyingfuture even for these beautiful couples, much less for many of the others in Hawks’s films; the other factors working upon their lives would seem to stack the cards against them for anything but the short term. And surely in the work of no other significant Hollywood director of the Production Code era have family and children played so marginal a role. In only one of his sound films,
Monkey Business
, are the central characters married throughout the picture. Edward G. Robinson and Zita Johann marry, unhappily, partway through
Tiger Shark;
Edward Arnold is encumbered in a passionless match in the second half of
Come and Get It;
Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell were formerly wed in
His Girl Friday;
Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan’s wedding precipitates all the ensuing frustrations and complicationsof
I Was a Male War Bride;
Dewey Martin unwittingly finds himself wed to Indian girl Elizabeth Threatt toward the end of
The Big Sky
, and Jack Hawkins’s Pharaoh seals his own fate when he takes Joan Collins for a secondwife in
Land of the Pharaohs
. In stark opposition to Hollywood convention, mothers appear with the utmost infrequency in Hawks’s work—briefly in
Scarface
,
Sergeant York
, and
Landof the Pharaohs
, marginally in
Come and Get It
. The only remotely normal and appealing kids in Hawks’s films—and their screen time is momentary—are the young Matthew Garth in
Red River
and Pharaoh’s son; the others, the little boys in
The Ransom of Red Chief
,
Monkey Business
,