History Creator / HowardHawks

* GenreProlificCreator: Howard did war movies (''Film/TheDawnPatrol'' and ''Film/SergeantYork''), screwball comedies (''Film/TwentiethCentury'', ''Film/BringingUpBaby'' and ''Film/HisGirlFriday''), westerns (''Film/RedRiver'' and ''Film/RioBravo''), a historical epic (''Land of the Pharoahs''), noir (''{{Film/The Big Sleep}}''), a musical movie (''Literature/GentlemenPreferBlondes'') and science fiction (''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'')...[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World#Director maybe]]. He also [[Main/TropeCodifier codified gangster movies]] (''{{Film/Scarface 1932}}'').

Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was one of the most versatile directors of UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood.

Though Hawks directed a number of hits throughout his career, he fell out of favor with critics in the '50s, but was VindicatedByHistory, thanks to [[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory "auteur"]] critics like Creator/FrancoisTruffaut who helped restore his reputation. A later generation of directors would cite him as a major influence, second only to Creator/JohnFord, due to his versatility in moving between genres, with the likes of Creator/JohnCarpenter, Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/RobertAltman, Creator/QuentinTarantino, Creator/WesAnderson, Creator/GreggAraki, and Creator/JimJarmusch testifying to his influence on their work.

* GenreProlificCreator: Howard did war movies (''Film/TheDawnPatrol'' and ''Film/SergeantYork''), screwball comedies (''Film/TwentiethCentury'', ''Film/BringingUpBaby'' and ''Film/HisGirlFriday''), westerns (''Film/RedRiver'' and ''Film/RioBravo''), a historical epic (''Land of the Pharoahs''), noir (''{{Film/The Big Sleep}}''), a musical movie (''Literature/GentlemenPreferBlondes'') and science fiction (''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'')...[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_from_Another_World#Director maybe]]. He also [[Main/TropeCodifier codified gangster movies]] ({{Film/Scarface 1932}}).

* GenreRoulette: Big time! He has touched almost every genre you can imagine from comedy, to drama, to crime thrillers, to westerns, to science fiction, to even a musical.

* CentralTheme: [[RatedMForManly Act like a man]].

* VitriolicBestBuds: His favorite kind of friendship in his films.

* ''Film/BallOfFire'' (1941) - A screwball comedy starring Creator/GaryCooper and Creator/BarbaraStanwyck, loosely based on ''Literature/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs''.

* ''Film/HisGirlFriday'' (1940) - Yet another iconic screwball comedy. Cary Grant and Creator/RosalindRussell (whose performance here inspired the character of ComicBook/LoisLane) try to free an innocent man from a MiscarriageOfJustice, but really it's WillTheyOrWontThey.

* ''Film/RioBravo'' (1959) - A major box-office hit in its day, and a Western with more focus on camaraderie and TrueCompanions than on the plot.

* ''Film/GentlemenPreferBlondes'' (1953) - Features Creator/MarilynMonroe's iconic number, "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend!"[[note]]Which Hawks did not direct, it was directed by choreographer, Jack Cole.[[/note]]

* ''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'' (1951) - A classic sci-fi monster movie that relies on [[NothingIsScarier suspense]] rather than special effects. Oddly enough, one of the rare cases where he was reluctant to take credit (his normal assistant director Christian Nyby is the credited director, even though it plays like one of Hawks' films).

* ''Film/OHenrysFullHouse" (1952) - Segment "The Ransom of Red Chief"

* SpiritedYoungLady: The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawksian_woman "Hawksian Woman"]] is effectively the Classical Hollywood take on this trope. The typical Howard Hawks heroine [[OneOfTheGuys hangs out with the boys]] and can [[SnarkToSnarkCombat go toe-to-to with the hero verbally]], and yet this "does not detract from her feminine qualities, such as seductiveness and softness."

Though Hawks directed a number of hits throughout his career, he fell out of favor with critics in the '50s, but was VindicatedByHistory, thanks to [[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory "auteur"]] critics like Creator/FrancoisTruffaut who helped restore his reputation. Later generation of directors would cite him as a major director, second only to Creator/JohnFord, citing his versatility in moving from genres with the likes of Creator/JohnCarpenter, Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/RobertAltman, Creator/QuentinTarantino, Creator/WesAnderson, Creator/GreggAraki, and Creator/JimJarmusch testifying to his influence on their work.

Though Hawks directed a number of hits throughout his career, he fell out of favor with critics in the '50s, but was VindicatedByHistory, thanks to [[UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory "auteur"]] critics like Creator/FrancoisTruffaut who helped restore his reputation. Later generation of directors would cite him as a major director, second only to Creator/JohnFord, citing his versatility in moving from genres with the likes of Creator/JohnCarpenter, Creator/MartinScorsese, Creator/RobertAltman, Creator/QuentinTarantino, Creator/WesAnderson, Creator/GreggAraki and Creator/JimJarmusch testifying to his influence on their work.

[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0843.JPG]]

Howard Hawks (May 30, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was one of the most versatile directors of UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood.

[[/index]]

[[index]]

* ''Film/{{Monkey Business|1952}}'' - Screwball comedy involving a youth potion.

* ''Film/RedRiver'' (1948) - An important Western and the first serious role for Creator/JohnWayne [[note]]Creator/JohnFord, Wayne's mentor, saw the film and told Hawks, "I didn't know that [[HeReallyCanAct son-of-a-bitch can act!]]" He would give Wayne more complex parts from then on, including ''Film/TheSearchers''.[[/note]]

* ''[[Film/{{Scarface 1932}} Scarface]]'' (1932) - The original version. The TropeCodifier of the gangster film genre and still just as bold and daring as the remake.

* ''Film/BallOfFire'' (1941)

!!Some tropes associated with Hawks are...

* AllWorkVsAllPlay : His movies are unique for blurring these lines, in his films, work is play, and characters who work together have a lot of fun, and the kind of fun that you can only have with people who watch your back.
* AngstWhatAngst :[invoked] Hawks' movies tend to flaunt this. ''Only Angels Have Wings'' opens with the death of a pilot named Joe, and immediately the pilots go around asking "Who's Joe?" and celebrate anyway though they mourn privately. For Hawks, death and tragedy are not the central features of life, but merely interruptions of real living.
* BlatantLies : His biographer noted that Hawks tended to boast about being a macho tough guy, who won fights and who was a big game hunter, none of which were remotely true. Most of the excitement in his life was dodging book-keepers trying to call his gambling debts.

* ConsummateProfessional : He was himself this and his films celebrate characters who are this in their chosen field. Film/RioBravo is about Creator/JohnWayne worrying that Creator/DeanMartin is undergoing BadassDecay while Ricky Nelson is the young plucky rookie who convinces the professionals that he's so good, "he doesn't need to prove it!" Film/HisGirlFriday is about DaChief Walter Burns (Creator/CaryGrant) manipulating [[WorkingWithTheEx his ex]] Creator/RosalindRussell back into his life, not only because he loves her but because he values her work as a journalist.
* FiveManBand : His movies tended to be about groups and they tended to fall into roles like this, with Creator/HumphreyBogart, Creator/CaryGrant and Creator/JohnWayne playing TheHero of their own crew in films like Film/ToHaveAndHaveNot, Only Angels Have Wings, Film/RioBravo.
* GenderBlenderName: Howard Hawks was so impressed by Creator/LeighBrackett's novel ''No Good from a Corpse'' that he had his secretary call "this guy Brackett" to help William Faulkner write the screenplay for ''The Big Sleep''. While this was the third screenplay she worked on, it brought her to wider attention and started a collaboration with Hawks on a grand total of six films over two decades (from ''The Big Sleep'' to ''Rio Lobo'').

* MagnumOpusDissonance : The films Hawks tended to be associated in his later years were ''Film/RioBravo'', ''Film/HisGirlFriday'' or ''Film/ToHaveAndHaveNot'' and he was seen as a director of TheWestern and the ScrewballComedy. His own favorite was the first ''Scarface'', a classic gangster film for sure, but an atypical work compared to his later films. He stated that it was a movie he had complete freedom to achieve what he wanted.
* RatedMForManly: A central theme for much of his work--particularly his Westerns and war films--involves looking into the meaning and implications of "being a man".
** Though funnily enough, auteurist critics actually celebrated his films for having prominent women characters and even being quasi-Feminist, citing Creator/RosalindRussell, Lauren Bacall and Angie Dickinson's performances in these films.

* VitriolicBestBuds: His favorite kind of friendship.