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Keeping up with Hawks - Style in Cinema - filmmaker Howard Hawks
Style, Fall, 1998 by Lea Jacobs
Although Milestone's version of Molly's leap is an exception, Hawks usually employs slightly longer scenes that give greater scope to the performers to establish pace and to vary speaking rhythm subtly. For example, Hawks's version of the scene in which Hildy captures Earl is about a minute and a half longer than Milestone's, 3:31 versus 2:00. In the first part of the scene, when Earl holds the gun on Hildy, restricting her movement, the dialogue is slow and quiet, 2.8 w/s. Both tempo and volume pick up in the second part of the scene at Earl's line: "Yes, you'll get them after me again. I won't let you do that! I'm . . ." which is interrupted by the shade on the window rolling up and snapping abruptly. In panic, Earl turns and fires his gun and then lets Hildy take it, saying there are no more bullets. The actress becomes more active at this point, as she runs around the room, closing the door and pulling down the window shades while talking to Earl. As the rhythm of speech as well as movement increases in the section after Hildy gets the gun, the overlapping dialogue reaches the speed of 3.4 w/s. The third part of the scene consists of amedium shot of Hildy talking into the two phones at a rate of 4.5 w/s.
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While the Milestone version ends with the actor speaking almost as quickly, it does not have Hawks's gradual acceleration. Moreover, the director seems to have been more concerned with staging and camera movement than with speech rhythm. Earl enters, confesses that his gun has already been emptied and gives a relatively long speech without any cuts and with many pauses at 2.8 w/s:
EARL. I surrender. I couldn't hang off of that roof any longer. I ain't afraid to die. I was telling the fellow that when he handed me the gun. Waking me up in the middle of the night. Talking to me about things he don't understand. Calling me a Bolshevik. I'm an anarchist. It's got nothing to do with bombs, it's the philosophy that guarantees every man freedom. All those poor people being crushed by the system. And the boys . . . the boys that were killed in the war. And in the slums. All of those slaves to a crust of bread. I can hear them crying.
During this speech, Hildy pulls down the window shades behind Earl and studies the room, looking for a place to hide the escaped convict. On the line "Go on, take me," Earl faints and, the shot continuing, Hildy carries Earl to the bathroom, shuts that door, comes forward and exits left to pull down more shades and finally closes the door to the pressroom (the camera having moved to a position outside this door). Cut back inside for the phone duologue. There are thus fifteen seconds of silent action between the first part of the scene, dominated by Earl's speech at 2.8 w/s, and the second part of the scene, dominated by Hildy's phone duologue at 4.2 w/s. Both the extended silence and the shutting of the door contribute to a sense of a break between the two segments, so that one is almost tempted to classify them as two very short scenes. In any case, there is not the rhythmic preparation for the duologue that contributes to the sense of its speed in His Girl Friday
