Howard Hawks Top Ten

 1) Scarface (1932) - terrific gangster flick even today

2) Red River (1948) - terrific Western even today (I'll stop saying that)

3) His Girl Friday (1940) - terrific etc

4) El Dorado (1967) - I like it better than Rio Bravo

5) Only Angels Have Wings (1939) - guys and gal bein' tough and Hawksian

6) To Have and Have Not (1944) - watch a couple fall in love

7) The Big Sleep (1946) - entertainingly confusing

8) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) - make more musicals Howard

9) The Thing (1951) - of course it's his film

10) Ball of Fire (1941) - good Stanwyck

No I didn't forget Rio Bravo or Bringing Up Baby I'm not really a fan of either.

Book review - " Mean...Moody...Magnificent! Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend" by Christina Rice

 I'm glad someone did a biography of Russell, she deserved it - someone who as Rice points out is an icon despite appearing in not that many films. This isn't as much fun as Russells batshit memoirs with its Christian sacrifices but is thorough. There was lots I didn't know particularly in the later years.

Movie review - "Red River" (1948) ****1/2

 Big epic Western which marvellously combines a been-around-for-a-bit star, John Wayne, who was just starting to play old men (he was a A minus star for most of the 40s, 1948 turned him into an A plus one) and an exciting new face, Montgomery Clift. They thrown in old reliable Walter Brennan, and an up and comer John Ireland... plus a surprising amount of juicy support parts (I'd forgotten because most analysis of the film concerns the leads but there's good support cowboys, like the bald dude from The Searchers; also Colleen Gray as Wayne's true love).

It's a very good story - Mutiny on the Bounty on the trail is a tremendous idea - very well developed, beautifully shot. It's full of Hawksian moments and/or homo-eroticism, with Clift and Ireland fondling their guns and making eyes at each other and Joanne Dru being hit by an arrow but not mentioning it and everyone being sassy.

The ending is maybe a little silly. It builds to this epic confrontation and sort of drifts into a shaggy dog treatment. I'm not sure how else you do it... I'm sure scholarship has been done on this but Ireland's death seems thrown away.

Movie review - "Targets" (1968) **** (rewatching)

 Maybe it's more naturally three and a half stars but considering the restrictions this is four star. Excellent debut from Bogdanovich, presented with, as Quentin Tarantino says, a puzzle... some footage from The Terror, a few days of Karloff.

Bogdanovich's luck was strong at this stage: he picked a great idea (to do something based on a spree killer), had Sam Fuller and Polly Platt in his corner to help him write the script (which I think gave him a false idea of his skill in that area).

Bogdanovich's acting is awkward - he had a lot on his plate - and the character should have been killed for shock value but his presence has film buff appeal. There's an Asian lead which might be more progressive if people didn't comment on the girl's Asian-ness all the time.

The director's style is apparent from the get go - long takes, languid takes, momentum that builds. People were idiots to say he was Ford/Hawks when he was his own man (or rather couple).

Movie review - "The Last Picture Show" (1971) ***** (warning: spoilers)

 This could've gone wrong so easily - Texasville gives some indication how - but this just works. Every decision: location work, black and white, being set twenty years ago, a 1971 view of 1951 meaning sex and violence could be shown but it was still in present memory, the casting.

It meanders on a bit but always with point. At times I was thinking this is a four star or four and a half star film but the ending walloped me: the shocking death of Billy (Sam Bottoms) and Sonny (Tim Bottoms) going to see Cloris Leachman who goes him. Stunning.

Although specific to time and place it is universal - leaving school, falling in love, regret, the death of an old man. It focuses on two boys but the women all get a turn: Jacey is a vixen but a three dimensional one, motivated by her mother who gets a terrific monologue, Eileen Brennan the waitress gets a great monologue and Leachman's speech is divine. I love the matter of fact acceptance by Ellen Burstyn of Bottoms having a fling with Leachman ("it's a scratchy age").

So much great stuff: the plot about a preacher's son being a pedophile and the way it's dealt with (I forgot that whole storyline but it's well done), the second-rate-ness of the football team, the matter of fact nudity, John Hillerman trying to engage his school class. 

Better writers have written about this movie but it is just damn good. Why didn't Bogdanovich make more dramas?

All the actors are perfect: both Bottoms, Ben Johnson, Cybil Shepherd, the old faces, etc.

Book review - "Cary Grant" by Scott Eyman

 Typically excellent biography by Eyman of the legendary Hollywood star. Discussion in recent years has centered around Grant's sexuality - this one presents the evidence rather than making conclusions (some dicey... who cares what Budd Boetticher thought?) and basically leaves it for the reader to decide. He mentions Grant's physical beating of his first and fourth wives without comment.

Grant's father married above his class; the mother would pester him and was a bit eccentric - dad got jack and had her sent to a lunatic asylum, which he could. No wonder Grant became a bit odd and wanted to reinvent himself.

It's a tribute he turned out so normal. He was genuinely smart and charming,capable of kindness. Open minded about sex. As mentioned Eyman quotes a number of people who insist Cary was straight but quotes a bisexual dude who said Grant was open about that to him and the evidence seems to imply otherwise. Loved kids (he should have had more than one and he knew it - he tried).

He had his flaws. Stinginess, if you count that as a flaw (he would present house guests with a bill). He hit his first and fourth wives. Controlling.

A superb actor. Didn't push himself as much as he should have. A great friend of Clifford Odets.

Possible movie in this... Cary Grant married to Besty Drake, who came up with the idea of the film Houseboat. Grant sold it with Drake to co star but then fell for Sophia Loren, had the film rewritten for her, Loren and he had a fling but she refused to leave Carlo Ponti, Grant is left alone, but finds happiness via LSD.

Movie review - "Red Line 7000" (1965) **

 A fascinating car crash of a movie, if you forgive the pun - because it is so absolutely purely Howard Hawks. Its full of fresh faces, the women keep trying to talk like Lauren Bacall, everyone hangs out and is noble in the face of death, there's overlapping dialogue, talk of professionalism, and being Hawksian.

And it could have worked. Hawks has a great feel for the camaraderie of the drivers and their women - they are groupies, though, just kind of hanging around. The basic stories aren't bad - a girl who dated a racer that died worries he's bad luck (this happens at the beginning though... it may have been more effective had we seen their relationship), a womanising driver has a fling with the sister of his boss and she goes head over heels, a man falls for the French girl of his rival but can't get over the fact she's used goods.

But the stories aren't really developed in interesting ways - we never see the bad luck girl with the guy who dies, so it doesn't matter much, and the new driver who loves her doesn't have a reason to do so; the womanising driver and the girl are just together then break up then he disappears from the movie; not enough time is spent on the rivalry.

Hawks needed to focus on the key six - it's hard enough doing that - but then the manager of the team gets all this screen time and so does Charlene Holt. There's a singer in there too. He doesn't do justice for the stories.

More importantly, the cast aren't up to it. James Caan is terrific - he's got "new star" all over him, you can see why people expected him to be one straight away. His character is loathsome, calling the girl he likes a slut because, gasp, she had a former boyfriend, but Caan is excellent. The other two racers, John Crawford and Skip Ward are far too anonymous - I kept getting them mixed up. Norman Alden was fine, but I kept forgetting who he was too. Couldn't they afford Walter Brennan?

Now the girls. Charlene Holt is fine... but I don't think they needed her character. Gail Hire is spectacularly bad with that voice. Laura Devon tries - has some moments - but really needed a better actor to play against. Mariana Hill is fun as a French girl, constantly dancing.  She gets to do some scenes with Caan.

There's not enough strong actors as Hawks later admitted. Not enough work on the story. Moments of pure camp like a song and dance number, and one of the racers competing with a hook once he loses his hand.

Still I enjoyed watching it. Everyone being Hawksian and not up to it.

Movie review - "Man's Favorite Sport?" (1964) ***

A maligned entry in the career of Howard Hawks but it's bright and colourful with a sense of relaxed camraderie that is winning. Paula Prentiss has this friend (Maria Perschy), who goes along who probably isn't really needed script wise but jokes around and is fun. They probably should have given Hudson a similar friend instead of that random boss figure.

There's some dated jokes about a local who pretends to be a Native American, bright colour, Prentiss is a delight, Hudson is amiable even though his role was clearly meant for Cary Grant and he plays it like Cary Grant (the slow burn, being pursued by a woman). Charlene Holt - like Perschy, a Hawks discovery - is Hudson's fiancee who is never much of a threat.

The whole film has a nice vibe to it.

Movie revew - "Fourteen Hours" (1951) ***

This starts off fantastically -Richard Basehart (very good)  walks out on the ledge of a building, sending everyone into a tizz. Passing cop Paul Douglas tries to talk him down while he gets visits from shrinks, another cop, the guy's parents.

But the thing is the movie doesn't really have anywhere to go. The movie is about finding out The Reason Why He's On the Ledge - and because it's the early 50s you can guess it'll be because his parents were to blame, and because it's 20th Century Fox you can guess the parent was a woman (Zanuck's films had this misogynistic streak), and when Agnes Moorehead turns up as mom it's like "there we go"... the macguffin is the fact Moorehead wrong raised Basehart to hate his father (Robert Keith).

I get divorce does terrible things to children but my sympathy with Basehart did ebb over time. Maybe it's to do with the fact that Basehart, who is excellent, was 36 when he made the film and he looks it. It's sort of made me go "alright already" when better casting might have been a young nervy actor, like James Dean (or equivalent).

Also the subplots aren't that memorable. Grace Kelly gets one as a woman on her way to divorce husband James Warren. Kelly doesn't look as though she's a star here - she's actor-y and pretty enough, there's no magic. She is far too good looking for Warren and their story is dull - she's distracted in a lawyer's office then they decide to give it another try. (This film would be loved by Catholics - it's all about preventing suicide and the evils of divorce).

The other one involves Jeffrey Hunter and Debra Paget, office workers who meet, and Hunter uses it as an excuse to flirt with Paget. This is treated seriously.

Apparently Howard Hawks was offered this and wanted to do it as a comedy, so Fox went with Henry Hathaway instead. Hathaway's direction is excellent - brisk, fast moving, lots of cuts, skilful use of location footage. But I think it would have worked better as  a comedy. Around the edges you see glimpses of a more interesting film - an evangelist who approaches the man, Moorehead playing up for the cameras, people waiting impatiently to jump. I feel it need a more cynical, satirical edge - maybe not go as hard core as Ace in the Hole but along those lines. Or at least a few more subplots - two wasn't enough - or at least some more twists in the two that are there. As it is Hunter just asks out Paget the end, and Kelly and her husband decide to get back together the end.

Douglas is very good, as is Howard da Silva as a fellow cop. Martin Gabel is perhaps creepier than he was intended to be as a shrink.

Movie review - "The Thing" (1982) **** (warning: spoilers)

I didn't like this movie when I saw it as a kid - too gory too bleak. But time has been extremely kind to it, especially when seen on the big screen, as I managed to do.

It looks fantastic with those snowy vistas and cramped interiors. Big screen make it easier to differentiate the characters too, which is a problem looking at it on the smaller screen - in this one I fully got who was who and appreciated the sublety in many performances, such as Richard Dysart as the doctor.

Some random observations:
* I think it would've been better if the bulk of the action had played out over one night instead of several days.
* They should have covered why Macready can fly to the Norwegian base and where the spaceship was found but not to help.
* I love Wilford Brimley going nuts.
* Many ideas of Macready turn out to be bad eg locking Brimley in the tool shed (so he can build a space ship).
* I realised one of the guys, the radio dude, is played by the actor whose character was killed off on The Warriors because he was annoying.
* A stoner character is useful in sci fi because they can make really outlandish claims as comedy, which helps sell the reality of the world you are creating.
* The quality of acting is very strong - there are no bad performances. It wouldn't have hurt to have two females though.
* The creepiest bits are the quiet ones... the dog entering someone's room and it fading to black, the creature moving under the blanket without the others knowing.
* There's a very American quality to the actions of the group. No thought of quarantining a strange dog even after people kill it. A lack of hygene. A tendency to pull out the flame throwers when things get testy. And the decision to blow things up before considering other possibilities.

Still, a wonderful movie. See it on the big screen if you can.

Book review - Marlowe #1 - "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler (1939) (re-reading)

Full of so much divine writing - the dialogue and the descriptions, not to mention vivid characters:Marlowe of course, the PI almost masochistic in his determination to do the right thing; Vivian, sexy, smart and harsh; Carmen, psychotic and constantly nude; General Sternwood, dying in his chair with that great intro scene (we want to see him again but when you see him again it's not worth it and you go 'there was no point to that we may as well have just had him in one scene'); the principled-or-is-he gangster Eddie Mars; the not-very-smart blackmailer Joe Brody; Geiger, the bisexual blackmailer; Carol, his violent, swear-happy lover (who doesn't appear in many adaptations); Agnes, the luckless woman; Mrs Eddie Mars, the lover of Reagan, caught up in a vicious crew; Regan, the soldier of fortune described but never met; Owen Taylor, the chauffeur whose murdered famously Chandler didn't know; the super killer Canino (a worthy threat)/

Some of the plotting is bodgy - Chandler really should have made it clear who killed Owen, and also the character of Harold Young, Agnes' feller, felt added on. And there was no resolution with the Eddie Mars character.

There's an unpleasant strand of homophobia, which one guesses was typical of the period. But great atmosphere and characterisation, even if you do get the feel Chandler is making it up as he goes along.

Script review - "Rio Bravo" by Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman

The central set up is great, I recognise the strength of its opening sequence, there's memorable characters - John T Chance, Dude, Stumpy, Colorado, Feathers - but it's not a great script. It's a series of scenes some of which are memorable (eg tracking down the killer with muddy boots, the Feather-John banter) others of which are repetitive (eg Dude being captured twice).

There's no build of tension - or suspense - I mean Chance sleeps in the hotel, and is always wondering off for a chat. It didn't make sense why the baddies would shoot Wheeler (the head baddy is supposed to be smart), the baddies aren't very memorable, Colorado doesn't get an end to his story.

I mean there's good stuff, and some great dialogue, and everyone is very tough and Hawksian and talking about being independent and professional. But I can't see why others love it so.

Book review - "Leading Lady Sherry Lansing and the Making of a Hollywood Groundbreaker" by Stephen Galloway (2017)

Sherry Lansing seems too nice and normal to be a truly legendary Hollywood exec, like Leo B Mayer, Robert Evans or even Dawn Steel. But she was/is smart and tenacious and had an excellent track record as an exec - she even developed her own genre, Sherry Lansing thrillers, like Fatal Attraction.

This is a pretty good book, benefiting considerably from close access to its subject matter.  Lansing had a happy/sad childhood - her mother fled from Nazi Germany, her adored father died at a young age when Lansing was only nine, mum's new husband could be aloof (though they grew close). Se was smart and pretty and went to work as a teacher, but her passion, initially was for acting. She got some decent roles including in Rio Lobo for Howard Hawks. However her enthusiasm for the craft dimmed. She found a new career when she went to work as a script reader - this led to a job as an executive.

The acting and good looks would have come in handy navigating the tricky world of Hollywood studio politics. She had some mentors too such as Dan Melnick (I didn't know he was a coke fiend), James T Aubrey (who was a boyfriend), Stanley Jaffe. She was appointed president of 20th Century Fox in 1980 but really made her mark as a producer in the 80s and head of Paramount in the 90s.

Lots of time in the book is devoted to the struggles of films that became successful: Fatal Attraction (a real fight and I believe it because no one in it was a big draw, not Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Adrian Lynne), Titanic, Braveheart, Forrest Gump, The Accused, Indecent Proposal.

There are a number of irritating errors: Jonathan Kaplan had directed way more than one movie before The Accused; Tom Berenger wasn't in Southern Comfort.

But this is compensated for by all the entertaining stories: Lansing reading the riot act on Mike Myers, who had adapted Passport to Pimlico for Wayne's World 2 without clearing the rights;
There's some unexpected sweetness in Lansing's relationship with her father and Aubrey and finding true love with William Friedkin; Robert Redford was easy to deal with on Indecent Proposal; the machinations of people like Frank Price and Alan Hirschfield; Dustin Hoffman being a prick to Meryl Streep on Kramer vs Kramer.

And it's got a great "arc" in that Lansing was a woman who battled incessant prejudice and sexism (overt and subtle) to get where she was. It's a good read.

Script review - "The Thing" by Bill Lancaster (1981)

Lancaster's only got three produced credits, but what credits - this, the Bad News Bears and The Bad News Bears in Japan (okay maybe that third isn't so awesome). Why was this so? Was he difficult to deal with? Unlucky? Lazy?

This is a taunt, gripping script - written in a sparse style you often find in Carpenter scripts (I don't know if that decision was from Lancaster independently, it may have been).

It thrusts us into the action straight away, with a dog being pursued by Norwegians in a helicopter, resulting in deaths. Then mysteries result.

This has some stuff that wasn't in the final film - good changes I feel: a sequence where Macready and others go after the thing on snowmobiles and one of them is killed (easily cut, though a decent sequence); a lot more scientific explanation.

The magnificent blood test scene is there. This draft also has what I feel was the main flaw - letting us think Macready might be the Thing, so we lose the audience surrogate. I think it was this rather than the violence and gore which hurt the movie at the box office - we didn't have anyone to relate to. (I could be completely wrong).

I also wish they had found ways to differentiate the characters apart from "black" - had a woman, maybe, or an Asian, or someone with one leg.

But it's a smart, exciting script that I admit to enjoying reading more than the Howard Hawks version.

Script review - "The Thing from Another World" by Charles Lederer (1951)

I have fond memories of the Howard Hawks (alright... Christian Nyby) film... but was surprised to find I didn't enjoy the script. Densely written in the fashion of the time - lots of description and big print and dialogue.

The story holds - it's very powerful, with a group of scientists and army men trapped in an Arctic base with a creature running loose. The romance between the main guy Hendry and the one girl isn't too great - at one stage he punches her in the stomach. (And he stuffs a lot of things up, blowing up the saucer.) The scientist is less of a loon than I remembered from the film - he has an arguable point of view. The journalist character got on my nerves - was he needed for the drama? Although I did like how they made him brave - a war veteran like his mates. I had trouble telling the other characters apart.

There's some bright dialogue, and everyone in the movie is smart. It's a solid "siege" picture.

Movie review - "Hatari" (1962) ***

I think the success of Lauren Bacall made Howard Hawks believe he could cast any old person in a movie and get away with it - haphazard castings were a feature of many of his later films. He probably figured as long as he had one genuine star and a decent support or two he could prop up anyone else with his skill - so you've got Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo and Jennifer O'Neill and Jorge Rivero in Rio Lobo and Michelle Carey in El Dorado.

This has a bunch of international names who can't really act - Elsa Martinelli as the girl, Gerard Blain as the new kid, Michele Girardon as another girl, Valentin de Vargas as some guy who is part of the group who just hangs around and doesn't really do anything.

Hawks gives them lots of Hawksian bits to do. Blain is meant to be a brilliant shot; Martinelli hangs on to a cigarette all the time and gets Wayne to kiss her, and has scenes with baby elephants and cheetahs - she even dons blackface to dance with the locals. Girardon does a lot of singing and dancing and being cute. But they're extremely awkward. You can ignore de Vargas, Girardon and Martinelli are at least pretty, Blain can barely walk.

There are some professional actors on hand at least. John Wayne effortlessly dominates the movie, as usual; Red Buttons zips around, looking spectacularly out of place but at least a pro; Hardy Kruger seems like someone who lives in Africa (making this did inspire Kruger to buy a farm there).

All the characters act as if they're, well, characters in in a Howard Hawks movie - they're tough, professional, jokey, loyal, fond of a drink (and drink driving, by the way); the women swap barbs with the men, and have sexy moments; the men pal around and are loyal to each other; there's a platonic love story between two men (Kruger and Blain) who start off hating each other, fall for the same girl, lose her and then go off to Europe together.

There are lots of "scenes" which are there pretty much just to be scenes. I like Howard Hawks movies and I did enjoy the scenes - I also felt that at two and a half hours running time, the film pushed its luck (especially in the rockets sequence).

The characters do a spectacularly low stakes job - capturing animals to put in a zoo. It does make for some interesting pictures - and location filming certainly helps - and at least they're not killing them, but I kept feeling for these poor old animals having fun on the veldt who were nabbed and shipped off to Salzburg or San Diego or wherever. It's certainly not a job worth risking life and limb - no Only Angels Have Wings.

The plot where Girardon falls for Red Buttons is yuck - she's like a teenager, he seems so old. The generation gap between John Wayne and Elsa Martinelli isn't much better. There was a similar gap between Wayne and Capucine in North to Alaska but I went with it in that film, because of story (Capucine played a prostitute, so it made more sense she'd grab the chance of a new life) and acting (Capucine was surprisingly good, whereas Martinelli isn't). Hawks gives Martinelli plenty of chances and protection - aforementioned scenes with baby animals and cheetahs, Wayne commits as always - but she never quite sells it.

Still, the movie has a lot of charm. I liked Wayne, there is some terrific location filming, Henry Mancini's music is catchy and I can't help but smile in moments where baby elephants run down the main street.  I just wish it was shorter and had a better supporting cast.

Movie review - "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953) ****

It terms of sheer fun, female bonding and high spirits this musical remains hard to beat - Jane Russell became famous for her chest, so assiduously promoted by Howard Hughes, but when she died everyone was posting clips from this film on Facebook, not The Outlaw. She's perfectly teamed with Marilyn Monroe as the gold digging Lorelei Lee. Russell's out for sex, Marilyn's out for diamonds, both care deeply for each other. Is it the best female friendship depicted in a movie? I can't think of a better one. (I probably will the minute I post this.)

It's full of terrific numbers - "Two Girls from Little Rock", "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". It feels very much like a filmed Broadway show - I haven't seen the original production, but much of the plot just smells of Broadway - most of the action takes place on an ocean liner and in Paris, the thrust of the actual plot concerns a missing tiara, there's very musical "bits" like the two girls being down and out at a Parisian cafe and talks on a shipboard galley at night.

The biggest debit is Elliot Reid's Malone. Tom Noonan's nerdy millionaire is fine - he's actually perfectly cast - but was there no one in Hollywood better than Reid to play Russell's love interest? The part doesn't involve singing or dancing or even that much acting - all you have to do is be handsome and virile, and Reid is hilariously inept. It doesn't really matter because the crux of the film is Monroe and Russell - it's just weird casting from Howard Hawks, that's all.

There's moments of pure high camp, such as Russell singing "Is There Anyone Here for Love" while men prance around in skin coloured short-shorts. (What was Hawks thinking?) "Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend" is done very well, both by Monroe and Russell. I love the gendarmes clapping along to Russell in the courtroom.

One thing I noticed on a recent viewing was that Lorelei really is quite mercenary. I mean, I get she was outwardly meant to be but at the end always thought that she would settle down and take good care of Noonan. But although she's engaged she's barely five seconds on the ship when she's seeking out other men, and trying to get diamonds off Charles Coburn. What's she planning on doing to get those diamonds? She's going to put out, isn't she? So surely even after she's married she's going to be susceptible to the lure of diamonds in exchange for favours?

Movie review - "Rio Lobo" (1970) ***

The last film from Howard Hawks, it came out around the time his reputation as an auteur was really starting to flourish. As a result the film received a lot of serious attention it probably didn't really warrant, and Hawks had to explain a lot of it away - he dumped blame on Jorge Rivero and Jennifer O'Neill especially.

Rivero is certainly no Dean Martin or Robert Mitchum; a good looking boy, as Hawks said, but he lacks presence, and he has troubles enunciating his lines. But to be fair he doesn't have as strong a character to play - no alcoholism or anything interesting, like Martin and Mitchum got to act - he's just a Mexican Confederate who is helping out.

Jennifer O'Neill comes off better; she is is very pretty and does have some edge to her character (she's a medicine woman, out for vengeance) - although Hawks didn't like her I'd put her on par with Angie Dickinson and Michelle Carey, but better than Elsa Martinelli in Hatari.

While I'm at it Chris Mitchum is no James Caan; he's not a bad actor, not as good as Caan but he's not as annoying as Ricky Nelson - but he doesn't have as good a character to play as Nelson or Caan did.  The more I think about it, the more annoying it got - in Rio Bravo Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson had clear characters with specific agendas; ditto James Caan and Robert Mitchum in El Dorado. But not Rivero here; Mitchum has an agenda (get his land) but no character.

On the topic of cast, Jack Elam is no Walter Brennan, though he is better than Arthur Hunnicut was in El Dorado. And I did like the way the moment Elam and Wayne met they kind of fell in love, as if they recognised each other from other movies.

Victor French is a very weak antagonist - the moment Duke meets him he just smacks him around and the guy whimpers. Mike Henry is better in the Chris George role as a corrupt sheriff. I think we missed out seeing the scene where Henry injured Sherry Lansing - it would have made her revenge at the end better.

By the way, Lansing's character feels shoe horned in. I gather that Hawks got sick of O'Neill and gave the emotive act of killing Henry to Lansing. Lansing is actually a lot better than O'Neill; there's a sexy scene where she covers her breasts while talking to Rivero. I'm not sure what she's doing in the film, why they didn't make her Mitchum's girlfriend or something, but she adds to the entertainment.

The story of this is problematic - the set up is John Wayne seeking revenge for his lifelong friend during the Civil War; the Confederates were responsible but only because of the work of a traitor, and the Duke goes after the traitor. This makes up the first thirty minutes and is quite fresh - with a neat attack on a train (they use bees and grease on a wheel), and some fun reversals where Wayne is captured by Rivero then outsmarts them.

But then the film becomes about all these other plot lines - Riviero going to help Mitchum reclaim his property in Texas (and we care because?), O'Neill seeking revenge for murder. Then Hawks throws in some more new characters - Sherry Lansing wanting revenge on Mike Henry.

You can hear Hawks trying to recreate his old magic. Sometimes it doesn't work - such as the flirting banter between O'Neill and Riviero, and between O'Neill and Wayne - but sometimes it does - such as Wayne and Elam's by play, Wayne being exasperated all the women call him "safe" (actually every scene with Wayne has something to recommend it). And the movie does have some of the old relaxed Hawks camaraderie.

I actually enjoy this movie a lot - the crap things like its weird plot and Riviero add to its charm.

Movie review - "Air Force" (1943) **1/2

Disappointing Howard Hawks film - I was looking forward to seeing it because I loved the radio adaptation version done by Lux and it has this great story: a bomber flies from San Francisco to Hawaii only to arrive slap bang into the attack on Pearl Harbour, then goes on to Wake Island and Clarke Field. And the central idea seems to intrinsically Hawksian i.e. a tight knit group of professionals being graceful under pressure and talking great slangy dialogue.

But what made a tight action-packed hour is dragged out over two hours, with the action time padded out by lots of unconvincing model work (I'm happy to tolerate some 1940s model work, I get that it wasn't easy to make films around this time, but they pour it on), not particularly interesting action sequences (especially at the end with the bombers dropping bombs on the Japanese fleet), and endless scenes of Americans talking about Japanese treachery, and Japanese traitors, and if only it had been a fair fight we would have won.

On a sociological/historical level this is fascinating - I've seen a few American films about the early months of the Pacific War (They Were Expendable, Bataan, Wake Island), which form their own sub-genre, the Cinema of American Defeat... The Allies basically got their butts kicked for six months, there were no victories, so Hollywood was forced to make inspirational war films about Americans losing - something it did not like to do. (And still doesn't. Once the Allies started regularly winning, Hollywood focused on those battles instead and you rarely see that initial period looked at anymore... even Pearl Harbour ended with the Doolittle Raid).

I don't recall any movie though with so many characters making excuses for America's performance in the first few months of the Pacific War - there are Japanese American quislings on Hawaii taking pot shots at the plane while it lands, claims that we could easily beat the Japanese when outnumbered a bit but not this much, more treachery, even more treachery. After a while it's like "alright, already, there's no shame with getting beaten by Asians, you just needed six months or so for America's superior military might to kick in and that's what happened".

Historically speaking I wasn't wild either about ending the plane flight participating in a big American naval victory, since none was happening around this time. I recognise the need for some sort of triumph, I just wish they'd limited themselves to say sinking one Japanese ship.

There are some effective moments - John Garfield's transformation from reluctant soldier to committed hero is hokey but works; there's a moving scene where Harry Carey discovers his son has died at Clarke Field and when the pilot dies; a scene where a fighter pilot banters with bomber pilots about bombers vs fighters is classic Hawks and very entertaining. No women - I felt for sure a nurse could have been brought on board.

There's a great film inside this, and part of me wondered if it wasn't ripe for remake, just trimmed down and with the whingeing and excuse making cut out.

Book review - "Hawks on Hawks" ed Joseph McBride

Do people still care about Howard Hawks any more? Once upon a time he was right up there on the auteur tree, along with John Ford and Hitchcock. He never quite enjoyed the high brow acclaim of either of those but was always respected - his films perhaps enjoyed more for sheer enjoyment's sake.

This is a highly entertaining collection of interviews with the great man where he reminisces about the films and espouses his philosophy. Some of it feels like typical exaggeration - everything was his idea, he takes credit for a lot of the writing, stock Hollywood stuff - but other feels fresh and true: the importance of getting bad scenes over and done with quickly, how to cast someone interesting and different, freshness in writing, the necessary of a good story.

He slags off Rio Lobo and Jennifer O'Neill (says she got too big for her boots), has some interesting things to say about discovering Lauren Bacall, chats a lot about the movie he hoped to make in the 70s with Starsky and Hutch, wonders (as everyone does) why Paul Prentiss didn't become a big star, doesn't mention The Thing, is candid-ish about his less successful pics (The Land of the Pharoahs, Redline 5000), loves Wayne, Grant, Cagney and Bogart. It's a shame Hawks never wrote a memoir but this is great to have anyway - we're lucky to have it.