
Howard Hawks c. 1966
SERIES
The Complete Howard Hawks
September 7November 10, 2013
Organized by Chief Curator David Schwartz
All films directed by Howard Hawks, unless noted. All titles to be shown on film.
Howard Hawks was the quintessential Hollywood director, a master of many genres who moved easily between drama and comedy with a style that was always lucid, energetic, and direct. Hawks worked in relative anonymity until the 1950s and ‘60s, when auteurist critics discerned a directorial signature that gave depth and coherence to his extremely diverse films. In his influential book Howard Hawks (1968), Robin Wood wrote, “If I were asked to choose a film that would justify the existence of Hollywood, I think it would be Rio Bravo. Hawks is at his most completely personal and individual when his work is most firmly traditional: The more established the foundation, the freer he feels to be himself.”
Cinema is a medium of action, in which everything must be expressed on the surface, in concrete physical terms. In Hawks’s film, behavior is everything. An instinctive existentialist, Hawks depicts a universe where groups of men and women battle the abyss by sticking to a precise code of conduct and behavior, where professionalism under pressure is the ultimate virtue. No great Hollywood director has ever shown less interest in such institutions as government, family, and marriage. And Hawks displayed a healthy disregard for gender roles. “In the end, the traditionalist Hawks may be more modern than the modernists,” wrote Molly Haskell, “in perceiving that as a mutual adventure of equals, sexual union, like sexual antagonism, is a meeting not of subject and object, but of two self-determining subjects.”
Resolutely unpretentious, Hawks said, “I try to tell my story as simply as possible, with the camera at eye level.” His definition of a good director was “somebody who doesn’t annoy you.” Hawks left the theorizing to the critics, such as Eric Rohmer, who wrote in Cahiers du Cinema in 1953, “The best Westerns are those signed by a great name. I say this because I love film, because I believe it is not the fruit of chance, but of art and men’s genius, because I think one cannot really love any film if one does not really love the ones by Howard Hawks.”
Museum members receive free admission to all Hawks films, plus have reservation privileges. Join the Museum today (individual memberships begin at $75) for these and other benefits.

To Have and Have Not
Saturday, September 7, 2:00 p.m.

Rio Bravo
Saturday, September 7, 4:30 p.m.

Fig Leaves
Sunday, September 8, 2:00 p.m.

The Cradle Snatchers
Sunday, September 8, 4:00 p.m.

Fazil
Sunday, September 8, 6:00 p.m.

Only Angels Have Wings
Saturday, September 14, 2:00 p.m.

I Was a Male War Bride
Saturday, September 14, 4:30 p.m.

Paid to Love
Sunday, September 15, 2:00 p.m.

Trent's Last Case
Sunday, September 15, 4:00 p.m.

A Girl in Every Port
Sunday, September 15, 6:00 p.m.

The Big Sleep
Friday, September 20, 7:00 p.m.

The Criminal Code
Saturday, September 21, 1:30 p.m.

Scarface (1932)
Saturday, September 21, 3:30 p.m.

Twentieth Century
Sunday, September 22, 2:00 p.m.

The Thing From Another World
Sunday, September 22, 4:30 p.m.

Bringing Up Baby
Saturday, September 28, 2:00 p.m.

The Crowd Roars
Sunday, September 29, 2:00 p.m.

Monkey Business
Sunday, September 29, 4:30 p.m.

Tiger Shark
Saturday, October 5, 2:00 p.m.

Man's Favorite Sport?
Saturday, October 5, 4:30 p.m.

Tiger Shark
Sunday, October 6, 2:00 p.m.

Today We Live
Sunday, October 6, 4:30 p.m.

Red River
Friday, October 11, 7:00 p.m.

Ball of Fire
Saturday, October 12, 2:00 p.m.

Sergeant York
Saturday, October 12, 4:30 p.m.

His Girl Friday
Sunday, October 13, 2:00 p.m.

A Song Is Born
Sunday, October 13, 4:30 p.m.

The Dawn Patrol
Saturday, October 19, 2:00 p.m.

Air Force
Saturday, October 19, 4:30 p.m.

Land of the Pharaohs
Sunday, October 20, 1:30 p.m.

Hatari!
Sunday, October 20, 4:00 p.m.

El Dorado
Saturday, October 26, 4:30 p.m.

Ceiling Zero
Saturday, November 2, 2:00 p.m.

Come and Get It
Saturday, November 2, 4:00 p.m.

Barbary Coast
Sunday, November 3, 2:00 p.m.

The Road to Glory
Sunday, November 3, 5:00 p.m.

Rio Lobo
Saturday, November 9, 2:00 p.m.

Red Line 7000
Sunday, November 10, 2:00 p.m.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Sunday, November 10, 4:30 p.m.

The Big Sky
Sunday, November 10, 7:00 p.m.