Hawks explains his views on directing and storytelling, and his work with such stars as Carole Lombard, John Barrymore, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe and such writers as Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Leigh Brackett, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

After transcribing and publishing his discussion with the audience at the festival, I edited a book of articles on him as Focus on Howard Hawks in 1972.

By that time it had dawned on me that all the talking I'd been doing with Hawks over the last seven years was adding up to a thorough reminiscence and analysis of his career.

I deliberately used the Laguna Beach weekend to explore areas that remained to be covered in his work, and when it was all over I had the interview book that Truffaut had suggested need to be done.

They discuss his pictures, notably Scarface, Twentieth Century, His Girl Friday, Sergeant York, Ball of Fire, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Red River and Rio Bravo.

'"[5] Regarding the writing of The Big Sleep, Hawks says he sent a telegram to Raymond Chandler asking "him to explain who killed so-and-so.

"[7] He recalls that after the preview of Rio Lobo, James Caan "came up to me and said 'Why didn't you tell me I was playing a comic part?'

Regarding El Dorado, Hawks says "I'm much more interested in the story of a friendship between two men than I am about a range war or something like that.

There are going to be many biographies of Hawks, but they will all lean heavily on this book; the pioneer so honestly reveals himself and the people with whom he worked."

George Weales, reviewing the book in The Georgia Review, wrote that "it is a worthwhile introduction to Hawks's working method, his sense of his own strengths, his ideas about acting, directing, and watching movies..." Weales criticizes McBride for not correcting some of Hawks's statements; McBride does not point out that Lombard had been in pictures before Twentieth Century.

"[12] In Cinéaste, Robert Sklar wrote that while Hawks's anecdotes should be taken with a grain of salt, the book "is the most detailed look we are likely to have at the self-created persona of this quintessential Hollywood director, and there are numerous insights into such subjects as working with actors and surviving in the Hollywood system.

[14] Reviewing the book in Film Comment, Kathleen Murphy wrote that Hawks's "anecdotes are as entertaining, as sporadically informative and provocative, as ever" but says McBride's questions lack the insight seen in François Truffaut's interviews with Hitchcock.

Hawks said he appreciated the recognition he received from French filmmakers, and in El Dorado he paid homage to Truffaut when a gunsmith tells someone to shoot the piano player.