Easton Arts Council’s sponsored classic film series continues Tuesday, May 6 at 7 p.m. at the Easton Public Library with Howard Hawks’ epic western “Red River”(1948), starring John Wayne and Montgomery Cliff.
Hawks directed impressive hit after hit through his five-decade career, but for most of that time he was considered nothing more than a competent artisan. A list of Hollywood’s Golden Age’s best gangster films, comedies, adventure films, romantic dramas, and westerns, surely includes “Scarface” (1932); “Bringing Up Baby” (1938); “Only Angels Have Wings” (1939); “To Have and Have Not” (1944); and “Red River” (1948); all directed by Howard Hawks.
Noted film scholar Andrew Sarris considered Hawks among his pantheon of top directors, alongside John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch, Jean Renoir and Charlie Chaplin; add that Howad Hawks was the greatest director most people have never heard of.
The reason for Hawks’ relative obscurity may have something to do with his impressive diversity: directing movies in every single genre. There appears at first blush to be a lack of consistency of vision when, for example, you compare Cary Grant’s comedic character in “Bringing Up Baby” with his strident persona in “Only Angels Have Wings,” films made just a year apart. It’s only when you line up Hawks’ comedies and his adventure films that you see that both are complementary, mirror-like visions of the same auteur.
Hawks sets “Red River,” his first western, against a sprawling 1,000-mile cattle drive from Texas to Missouri, with a grand cast of characters and 3,000 bovines. But the story is at once smaller and intimate, while grander and universal. At its core, “Red River” is about the love/hate relationship between a father and his adopted son. The movie’s resolution deviates sharply from the serialized Saturday Evening Post story it’s based on, an important change that speaks to Hawks’ vision and authorship.
Come and join us to learn more, including the story of how this critically acclaimed box-office hit bankrupted Howard Hawks’ production company (with the help of Howard Hughes). We’ll be showing the original complete, uncensored version as shown when the film was previewed 77 years ago. Hope to see you on Tuesday, May 6 at 7 p.m. at the Easton Public Library. There’s more than meets the eye!
