Showing posts with label Howard Hawks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Howard Hawks. Show all posts

Saturday, January 16, 2010

To Have and Have Not


Bogart and Bacall at their best. Howard Hawks directed them in 1944. This is the first film they worked on together and the chemistry is evident.

Faulkner worked on the screenplay from an uncredited Hemingway novel.

Bogart plays a charter boat captain during World War Two who tries to remain aloof and neutral. But circumstances force him to become involved in the resistance and with a sexy cabaret singer.

Great adventure romance.

Walter Brennan shines as Bogart's drunk first mate ("Ever been stung by a dead bee?"), Bacall is HOT and Bogart is prime.

Not to be missed.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037382/

Sunday, December 20, 2009

His Girl Friday

Howard Hawks directed this 1940 screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosiland Russell.

Taken from the play "The Front Page" this has been made many times in various incarnations but this one remains classic.

Newspaper reporter (Russell) is leaving her job after divorcing her editor (Grant), who is as concerned about losing his wife and his star reporter. He schemes to keep her on the job and near him with a breaking story about a killer's execution.

Smart and funny, with overlapping dialogue that will keep you on your toes and laughing out loud.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032599/

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Bringing Up Baby

Howard Hawks directed this comedy starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

One of the best movie comedies ever.

Grant plays a nerdy professor who is drawn into the life of a wacky heiress who changes him forever. A totally screwball comedy if there ever was one.

Grant and Hepburn are wonderful together. Lots of abusrd situations but it all works. The stars shine in this one.

Remade (sort of) as "What's Up Doc?" with Ryan O'Neal and Barbara Streisand.

Don't miss this one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029947/

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Rio Bravo

John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan, Angie Dickinson star in this 1959 western from Howard Hawks.

A western classic.

Lawman and his deputies, including a drunk and an old man, try to hold a murderer in their town's jail 'til a U.S. Marshal arrives while the killer's brother makes life difficult for them.

Strangely cohesive mix of action, suspense, and humor. Everyone in the cast does a fine job...especially Dean Martin.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053221/

Friday, September 18, 2009

Twentieth Century


Love those screwball comedies...from His Girl Friday to Bringing Up Baby. But this one could be the grandaddy of them all.

Made in 1934 and directed by Howard Hawks, Twentieth Century stars John Barrymore at his funniest and Carole Lombard who matches him laugh for laugh.

Broadway producer with an ego the size of New York turns shopgirl Lombard into a star but when she decides to leave him, he tries every trick in the book to win her back. He has plenty of time, as they travel across country on a train called the Twentieth Century.

Taken from the original Broadway play, this returned to Broadway some time ago as a musical called On the Twentieth Century.

Played for laughs, it provides more than enough.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025919/