Howard Hawks

The French will probably never live down their adoration of Jerry Lewis. But American movie lovers might cut them more slack if they remembered that the French also worshiped Howard Hawks. His own countrymen, slow in recognizing the director's greatness, finally gave Hawks an honorary Oscar in 1975 for a body of work that included what are now considered masterpieces: "Scarface," "Bringing Up Baby," "To Have and Have Not," "His Girl Friday," "The Big Sleep." And "Red River."

Howard Hawks, the director of such classics as "Bringing Up Baby," "His Girl Friday" and "Red River," never was one to point his finger if one of his films failed. He always took the blame. "He didn't alibi it," says the late filmmaker's friend, director Peter Bogdanovich, who wrote about Hawks in his book "Who the Devil Made It." "He said it was his fault. He didn't make excuses."

Howard Hawks, the director of such classics as "Bringing Up Baby," "His Girl Friday" and "Red River," never was one to point his finger if one of his films failed. He always took the blame. "He didn't alibi it," says the late filmmaker's friend, director Peter Bogdanovich, who wrote about Hawks in his book "Who the Devil Made It." "He said it was his fault. He didn't make excuses."

JOHN WAYNE would be turning 100 on Saturday, and to mark the occasion, studios with Wayne titles in their vaults are in the throes of reissue madness. Paramount is releasing a 14-film "centennial collection" and a deluxe edition of "True Grit" (1969), which won the Duke his only Oscar. Lionsgate digs into Wayne's 1940s and '50s work with genre house Republic Pictures and emerges with two themed box sets (war flicks and westerns) and six double-feature discs. Warner Bros.

Howard Winchester Hawks wasn't simply the man critics around the world would call the greatest film director of all time. In an industry in which fortune is fickle and filmmakers peak and flop overnight, Hawks endured. He tackled every genre and mastered them all. During one remarkable four-year span, Hawks made "To Have and Have Not" (1944), "The Big Sleep" (1946) and "Red River" (1948), films that changed the way Americans thought about movies.

Given its veddy English subject matter, and its hostile reviews in the United States, one might have thought British movie critics would have their knives sharpened for "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," which opened in London last weekend. Well, yes and no. Though Kevin Costner's performance in the title role was greeted coolly, some reviewers found themselves warming to the film.

"The Thing" was produced by Howard Hawks and supposedly directed by his editor on "Red River," Christian Nyby. . . . Howard Hawks was listed as "presenting" the film, with Christian Nyby listed as director, but chances are that Hawks also had a sizable share in the directing. . . . Ostensibly directed by Christian Nyby but generally considered the work of its producer. . . . Many consider [Nyby's] contribution to "The Thing" to be minimal. * You're no doubt familiar with the Hollywood blacklist.

The breakthrough year for John Wayne was 1948. He appeared in three pictures that year, all first-rate films by first-rate directors--Howard Hawks' "Red River" and John Ford's "Fort Apache" and "Three Godfathers." This year moved Wayne onto the actors' Top 10 list of moneymakers in 1949. He would not be off that list for the next quarter of a century.

This is high-style vintage (1986) John Woo in which the celebrated writer-director has struck a perfect balance between emotion and violence. Its premise could well have been lifted from early Warner Bros.--one brother becomes a gangster, the other, a cop--and it also extols the virtue of loyalty between friends in the tradition of Howard Hawks. The film's success, however, rests on a well-developed plot and the three-dimensional characterizations.

The late, great director Howard Hawks was a girl's best friend. Or let's make that an actress' best friend. Though he made a lot of macho films such as "Red River" and the 1932 "Scarface," Hawks excelled in presenting a new type of woman on screen, a gal who could hold her own with any man and had as many dimensions and problems as the male of the species.

The French will probably never live down their adoration of Jerry Lewis. But American movie lovers might cut them more slack if they remembered that the French also worshiped Howard Hawks. His own countrymen, slow in recognizing the director's greatness, finally gave Hawks an honorary Oscar in 1975 for a body of work that included what are now considered masterpieces: "Scarface," "Bringing Up Baby," "To Have and Have Not," "His Girl Friday," "The Big Sleep." And "Red River."

Howard Winchester Hawks wasn't simply the man critics around the world would call the greatest film director of all time. In an industry in which fortune is fickle and filmmakers peak and flop overnight, Hawks endured. He tackled every genre and mastered them all. During one remarkable four-year span, Hawks made "To Have and Have Not" (1944), "The Big Sleep" (1946) and "Red River" (1948), films that changed the way Americans thought about movies.

"The Thing" was produced by Howard Hawks and supposedly directed by his editor on "Red River," Christian Nyby. . . . Howard Hawks was listed as "presenting" the film, with Christian Nyby listed as director, but chances are that Hawks also had a sizable share in the directing. . . . Ostensibly directed by Christian Nyby but generally considered the work of its producer. . . . Many consider [Nyby's] contribution to "The Thing" to be minimal. * You're no doubt familiar with the Hollywood blacklist.

It captivated New York and then London as movies with an L.A. imprimatur rarely do, dazzling critics and inspiring dozens of newspaper and magazine stories. Now it's coming back to the town where it all began for an exclusive five-day run. Not bad for a film that's simultaneously more than 50 years old and brand-new.

Though as fussy a critic-filmmaker as Jean-Luc Godard singled out Howard Hawks as "the greatest American artist," as late as 1968, when Hawks was analyzed in "The American Cinema," Andrew Sarris could honestly call him "until recently the least known and least appreciated Hollywood director of any stature." But by this year, a bit more than a century after his birth, the Hawks pendulum has swung massively in the other direction.

Certainly, the weirdest figure to come out of the movies' early-'30's fascination with gangsters has to be Tony Camonte in Howard Hawks' "Scarface: The Shame of the Nation." Played by a twitchy Paul Muni, he had both Edward G. Robinson's Rico Bandello ("Little Caesar," 1931) and James Cagney's swaggering upstart in "Public Enemy" (also 1931) beat on the obsessive/compulsive scale.

Though as fussy a critic-filmmaker as Jean-Luc Godard singled out Howard Hawks as "the greatest American artist," as late as 1968, when Hawks was analyzed in "The American Cinema," Andrew Sarris could honestly call him "until recently the least known and least appreciated Hollywood director of any stature." But by this year, a bit more than a century after his birth, the Hawks pendulum has swung massively in the other direction.

The breakthrough year for John Wayne was 1948. He appeared in three pictures that year, all first-rate films by first-rate directors--Howard Hawks' "Red River" and John Ford's "Fort Apache" and "Three Godfathers." This year moved Wayne onto the actors' Top 10 list of moneymakers in 1949. He would not be off that list for the next quarter of a century.