Esteem Soars for Hawks

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. A thorough and thoroughly readable biography by Variety film critic Todd McCarthy, titled “Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood,” is about to be published, as well as a definitive critical anthology, “Howard Hawks: American Artist,” co-edited by UCLA’s Peter Wollen.

A British Film Institute-funded documentary with the same name has been completed, a comprehensive tribute to Hawks was recently mounted in London’s National Film Theater, and now the UCLA Film and Television Archive is following suit with a 22-film series beginning May 3 and running through June 5.

Titled “Hawks and the Modern Age,” the UCLA series is a pleasantly eclectic grouping, which has chosen to do without some of Hawks’ best-known films, including “Red River,” “Bringing Up Baby,” “Sergeant York” and “The Outlaw.” It does, however, include that British Film Institute documentary and a thoughtful selection of Hawks’ films that includes both popular favorites and rarely seen items culled from the director’s 40 credits.

Opening with 1928’s “A Girl in Every Port,” probably Hawks’ best-known silent (live musical accompaniment by Alex Rannie) and ending with his 1967 “El Dorado,” the series offers a rare opportunity to view representative examples from all of Hawks’ work and ponder the great swings in his reputation.

Though always respected in Hollywood because of his brisk commercial attitude (“He wanted to make good films with big stars and bring in a lot of money,” writes McCarthy), Hawks was not the kind of guy who won Oscars. Aside from a special Academy Award given in 1974, three years before his death, he was nominated for best director only once, for “Sergeant York” in 1941, losing not to fellow nominee Orson Welles for “Citizen Kane” but to John Ford for “How Green Was My Valley.” And though he worked closely and well with the best screenwriters of his time, Hawks was typical of an era when thinking of yourself as a self-conscious artist was not the thing to do.

As it turned out, the very qualities that led to Hawks’ not being critically lionized in his prime, things like the range of subject matter he was proficient in and his streamlined, minimalist visual style, made him perfect for auteur-oriented critics bursting to find overlooked careers that could be analyzed for consistent themes over a variety of genres.

And analyzed and appreciated Hawks was, as writers compared him to everyone from Samuel Beckett to Monet, painting those water lilies again and again. Mostly it was themes of professionalism and codes of masculine behavior that critics pointed out, with David Thompson, who said all 10 films he would take to that mythical desert island would be directed by Hawks, noting that he made movies about men who “are more expressive rolling a cigarette than saving the world.”

Because Hawks specialized in what Sarris called “good, clean, direct, functional cinema,” his films have rarely dated. And whether you find auteurist analysis of him instructive or beside the point, what has always characterized Hawks’ films is how consistently entertaining they were.

His vivid “Scarface,” unseen for many years because of a rights dispute, starred Paul Muni as an Al Capone clone and was one of the first of the 1930s gangster epics. And Hawks’ dark end of the street pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in both “To Have and Have Not” and “The Big Sleep” are lessons in the adroit use of star power.

Himself a flyer for the Army Air Corps in World War I, Hawks was drawn to aviation pictures, and UCLA will show three of his best: “Ceiling Zero,” starring James Cagney and Pat O’Brien; “Only Angels Have Wings,” with the romantic pairing of Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, and “Air Force,” with its famous deathbed scene written by William Faulkner.

Hawks’ films could also have quite a sense of humor. “Twentieth Century,” with its hectic combination of John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, is considered one of Hollywood’s first screwball comedies, and “His Girl Friday,” a twist on “The Front Page” starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, might just be the fastest-talking film ever. “Hawks’ comedy clocks in at 240 words per minute, about 100-140 words per minute faster than the average speaking rate,” wrote critic Lauren Rabinovitz. “But his timing, camera work and editing make it seem faster still.”

For the die-hard Hawksians, UCLA also offers a double bill of his cowboy movies, “El Dorado” and “Rio Lobo.” All these years later it’s still hard to argue with an assessment made by a graduate school friend after seeing a double bill of John Ford’s “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” and “Red River:” “John Ford makes westerns,” he said, “but Howard Hawks makes Howard Hawks movies.”

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The schedule:

May 3, 7:30 p.m.: “A Girl in Every Port,” introduced by Peter Wollen.

May 4, 2 p.m.: “Scarface,” “The Criminal Code.”

May 6, 7 p.m.: “Howard Hawks: American Artist,” “To Have and Have Not.”

May 11, 7 p.m.: “The Crowd Roars,” “Ceiling Zero.”

May 13, 7:30 p.m. “Only Angels Have Wings,” “Hatari!”

May 17, 7 p.m.: “His Girl Friday,” “Twentieth Century,” introduced by Jonathan Kuntz.

May 18, 7 p.m.: “The Road to Glory,” “Air Force.”

May 25, 7 p.m.: “The Big Sleep,” introduced by Robert Gitt.

May 29, 7:30 p.m.: “Ball of Fire,” “Fig Leaves.”

May 31, 7 p.m.: “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “I Was a Male War Bride,” introduced by Anne Friedberg.

June 1, 7 p.m.: “Monkey Business,” “The Thing” (directed by Christian Nyby and produced by Hawks)

June 5, 7 p.m. “El Dorado,” “Rio Lobo.”

* UCLA’s Melnitz Theater, near intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Hilgard Avenue. Tickets are $3-$5; matinees $1.50-$3. Parking $5. For information call (310) 206-FILM.