Howard Hawks had been called by film critic Leonard Maltin as "the greatest American director who is not a household name." His imprint in the early Golden Age of Hollywood is everywhere. His versatility in expertly handling all types of genres, from screwball comedies, to westerns, to film noirs, to even musicals, is all encompassing. Hawks played a huge influence on future film directors such as Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and France's Jean-Luc Godard. The director's speciality, however, was movies about the friendly bonding of males, a concurrent theme in many of his films.
Beginning as a director in silent movies, his first movie containing the first traces of the Hawksian male trademark is February 1928's "A Girl In Every Port." Hawks wrote the story that the film's screenplay was based. It details a sailor, Spike (Victor McLaglen), who has a girlfriend in every port where his schooner docks at. Trouble brews when he discovers another sailor, Salami (Robert Armstrong), has coincidentally swept every girlfriend of his off their feet, leaving each of them a distinctive heart-shaped charm with an anchor inside. Spike finally catches up to Salami, and they duke it out. Using a similar set-up by the play and the movie "What Price Glory?" Hawks' story has the two adversaries ultimately forming a close bond-that is until Marie (Louise Brooks) enters the scene, stealing Spike (and his money) away from Salami. Film historians cite "A Girl In Every Port" as the first time in the director's oeuvre where his male characters feel friendship is more important than a relationship with a women. In this movie, Louise Brooks plays a conniving thief who is out to steal every penny from the gullible Spike.
An avid tennis player as a youth (he won the United States Junior Tennis Championship), Hawks joined the Aviation Section of the U. S. Signal Corps during World War One teaching untrained pilots how to fly. Living in Pasadena, California, after the war, he had worked summer jobs at film studios. His first employment was as a prop boy for Douglas Fairbanks films. Working alongside the actor, Mary Pickford and Cecil B. DeMille, Hawks secured a position at Paramount Pictures as a Production Editor and script writer. In 1925, Hawks was offered to direct films at Fox Films, with "A Girl In Every Port" his fifth movie.
The 21-year-old actress Louise Brooks' career took a giant leap forward in her role as Marie. Soon after "A Girl In Every Port" was released, German director G. W Pabst spotted her on the screen and felt she would be perfect for what turned out to be her defining role, 1929's "Pandora's Box." This Hawks film and her next appearance in "Beggars In Life" solidified Brooks' reputation as one of the more talented rising new stars in cinema.
