"[2] Roger Ebert called Hawks "one of the greatest American directors of pure movies, and a hero of auteur critics because he found his own laconic values in so many different kinds of genre material.

His most popular films include Scarface (1932), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948), The Thing from Another World (1951), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and Rio Bravo (1959).

His work has influenced such directors as Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, John Carpenter, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Quentin Tarantino and Michael Mann.

When Pickford visited Hawks at basic training, his superior officers were so impressed by the appearance of the celebrity that they promoted him to flight instructor and sent him to Texas to teach new recruits.

Warner quickly paid back the loan and hired Hawks as a producer to "oversee" the making of a new series of one-reel comedies starring the Italian comedian Monty Banks.

The production company, Associated Producers, was a joint venture between Hawks, Allan Dwan, Marshall Neilan and director Allen Holubar, with a distribution deal with First National.

[23] More of a "boy's club" than a production company, the four men gradually drifted apart and went their separate ways in 1923, by which time Hawks had decided that he wanted to direct rather than produce.

[26] Hawks accepted and was immediately put in charge of over 40 productions, including several literary acquisitions of stories by Joseph Conrad, Jack London and Zane Grey.

[34] In March 1927, Hawks signed a new one-year, three-picture contract with Fox and was assigned to direct Fazil, based on the play L'Insoumise by Pierre Frondaie.

Wanting to capitalize on the country's aviation craze, Fox immediately bought Hawks's original story for The Air Circus, a variation of the theme of male friendship about two young pilots.

Shrewdly, Hawks began to hire many of the aviation experts and cameramen that had been employed by Hughes, including Elmer Dyer, Harry Reynolds and Ira Reed.

[49] In 1930, Hughes hired Hawks to direct Scarface, a gangster film loosely based on the life of Chicago mobster Al Capone.

[26] After filming was complete on Scarface, Hawks left Hughes to fight the legal battles and returned to First National to fulfill his contract, this time with producer Darryl F. Zanuck.

It was based on a stage play by Hecht and Charles MacArthur and, along with Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (released the same year), is considered to be the defining film of the screwball comedy genre.

"[56]: 72  Hawks followed it with 11 consecutive hits up to 1951, starting with the aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings, made in 1939 for Columbia Pictures and starring Grant,[57] Jean Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, Rita Hayworth and Richard Barthelmess.

[58] Not forgetting the influence Jesse Lasky had on his early career, in 1941, Hawks made Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper as a pacifist farmer who becomes a decorated World War I soldier.

Cooper plays a sheltered, intellectual linguist who is writing an encyclopedia with six other scientists and hires street-wise Stanwyck to help them with modern slang terms.

In 1941, Hawks began work on the Howard Hughes-produced (and later directed) film The Outlaw, based on the life of Billy the Kid and starring Jane Russell.

Hawks, William Faulkner and Jules Furthman collaborated on the script, about an American fishing boat captain working out of Martinique after the Fall of France in 1940.

[26] An early 1945 version was substantially recut to comprise the final 1946 U.S. release with additional scenes emphasizing the special repartee chemistry between Bogart and Bacall.

'"[56]: 8 In 1948, Hawks made Red River, an epic Western reminiscent of Mutiny on the Bounty starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in his first film.

[64] In 1964, Hawks made his final comedy, Man's Favorite Sport?, starring Rock Hudson (since Cary Grant felt he was too old for the role) and Paula Prentiss.

[26] After Rio Lobo, Hawks planned a project relating to Ernest Hemingway and "Now, Mr. Gus", a comedy about two male friends seeking oil and money.

In addition to being in the early stages of Parkinson's disease in the years leading up to his death, an injury suffered on the set of Rio Lobo severely damaged one of his legs.

The ostensible comedies are shot through with exposed emotions, with the subtlest views of the sex war, and with a wry acknowledgment of the incompatibility of men and women.

"[39] David Boxwell argues that the filmmaker's body of work "has been accused of a historical and adolescent escapism, but Hawks's fans rejoice in his oeuvre's remarkable avoidance of Hollywood's religiosity, bathos, flag-waving, and sentimentality.

Hawks discovered many well known film stars such as Paul Muni, George Raft, Ann Dvorak, Carole Lombard, Frances Farmer, Jane Russell, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Angie Dickinson, James Caan, and most famously, Lauren Bacall.

From the film industry, he received three nominations for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures from the Directors Guild of America for Red River in 1949, The Big Sky in 1953, and Rio Bravo in 1960.

[106] According to professor of film studies Ian Brookes, Hawks is not as well known as other directors, because of his lack of association with a particular genre such as Ford with Westerns and Hitchcock with thrillers.

[108] Hawks's directorial style and the use of natural, conversational dialogue in his films are cited as major influences on many noted filmmakers, including Robert Altman[109] John Carpenter,[110] and Quentin Tarantino.