director 15: hawks films

another of the many astounding films featuring humphrey bogart. hawks directing job was great as he handled the difficult and involved script as well as anyone could have. the story was great, reminding me a lot of the maltese falcon but maybe even slightly better. i was intrigued the whole way through, and this is one of those rare films that leaves you completely satisfied without a criticism. amazing movie.

snow white and the seven musical genius hermits. not only one of the best musicals ever made, but one of my favorite films of all time. virginia mayo shows us again why she was one of the most beautiful women of her time, and dany kaye puts in a stellar performance. the appearances and music of two of the greatest musicians of all time, benny goodman and sachmo, were excellent. each piece of music in this musical about the making of jazz was perfect, and the love story hit the mark. the opening sequence was fuzed with clever writing and great humor, and the film never slows down. one of the top five films of its decade which features some of the greatest films ever made.

the grandfather of all gangster films. the gold standard and one of the greatest films ever made, this film is everything that a gangster picture should be. haunting for its time, the original scarface puts the depalma version to shame and shows us what the gritty world of 1930's depression era crime was like. masterpiece.

everything in me wants to rate this perfectly except the small voice holding me back until i get a second viewing. probably the second best western ive ever seen, and better for me than many of the western gold standards like high noon and the searchers. this is the most ive enjoyed john wayne whom i normally dont care too much for, and every cast member was chosen perfectly for their role. the story was epic although typical, and the film had an epic feel because of the grand and detailed stoytelling. truly one of the great westerns of all time.

a near perfect western and one of the best films of the 1940's. clift was perfect in his debut, wayne gives one of the best performances of his career, and the characters developed for the film were engaging and well suited for the story. as westerns go, this film is far more epic than most as we expirience a well crafted cattle drive over the course of 1,000 miles. great action, high emotion, and an excellent story place this film up there as yet another great film from the masterful howard hawks. the only thing holding this film back from really being my favorite western of all time is the late infusion of tess's character into the story. she felt forced, which might have been a script issue but was more than likely the weakness of joanne dru's performance. aside from this one misstep red river is one of the greatest westerns ever made.

this film is very loosely based on the hemingway novel of the same name. the film is phenomenal, the deviations from hemingways novel were mostly for the better as the novel is my least favorite of the 6 hemingway novels i have read, and even hemigway admitted that without the story changes the novel would have never made a good movie. this was a good movie, hawks direction was great and bogart was casual but commanding. bogarts performance was effortless, like he walked in off the street and threw down some attitude for two hours and called it a day, while at the same time he was incredible. he brings films to a new level they couldnt reach without him. great flick.

i must begin by stating that howard hawks is one of my favorite directors of all time and cary grant is growing on me more and more all the time, so while im not a big katherine hepburn fan i had high hopes for this comedy that is still considered among the greats of all time. this was possibly the most headache inducing film i have ever seen. i literally felt pain in my head watching these "zaney" antics that were built on rediculous coincidences and confusing diologues that made me want to stop the film numerous times. the characters were dry and unlikeable and most of the sequences were uncomfortable to watch. it keeps itself from the worst of the worst by reputation and starpower, but one of the most frustrating and disappointing films i have ever seen.