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Keeping up with Hawks - Style in Cinema - filmmaker Howard Hawks

Style, Fall, 1998 by Lea Jacobs

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WALTER. Come and have some lunch and you can tell me everything.

HILDY. I have a lunch date already

WALTER. Well break it. (He grabs her right hand with his right and pulls.)

HILDY. I cannot break it.

WALTER. Certainly you can. Come on.

HILDY. (She frees herself from his grasp.) Will you take your hands off me. What are you playing?Osteopath?

WALTER. (He holds both his hands up fully open at chest height.) Temper, temper.

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After this extremely fast and heated passage the pace abates somewhat. Grant lowers his hands, Russell puts hers down to waist height. She speaks: "Ah, listen Walter. You are no longer my husband and no longer my boss. And you're not going to be my boss," speaking more slowly and with a pause after "Walter" and the first "boss." Then she mo yes toward the desk in front of them to crush out her cigarette in an ashtray. What is most interesting about this section is that in just under thirty-nine seconds it moves from a moment of relative calm and a relaxation of tension to the fastest speaking pace so far, 5.0 w/s and an incredibly rapid flurry of gestures. It is necessary to quote at length to demonstrate how this acceleration occurs. Note that it begins at Grant's line "Ah, ah," with the resumption of overlapped dialogue.

(The camera is tracking back to follow Russell 's forward movement to the ash tray on the desk.)

WALTER. What's that supposed to mean? (Track continues. She pushes the rim of her hat back.)

HILDY. Just what I say. (With her left hand, she extinguishes her cigarette in the ashtray on desk.)

WALTER. You mean you're not coming back to work on the paper?(He takes one step toward her.)

HILDY. You are right, Mr. Burns, for the first time today. (At "you" she points at him with her right hand without looking back. The left hand remains with the cigarette on the table.)

WALTER. Ah, ah. Got a better offer, huh? (At "ah, ah" he lifts his left hand with the cigarette.)

HILDY. You bet I've got a better offer. (At "offer" she picks up a mirror off the desk and starts primping her hair.)

WALTER. All right, go on, take it. Work for somebody else. That's the gratitude I get.

HILDY. Oh, I wish you'd stop hamming.(She puts the mirror down.)

WALTER. (He moves closer to her, they are standing side by side facing camera.) What were you when you came in here five years ago? A little college girl from the school of journalism. I took a doll-faced hick . . . (At "five" he points off in the direction of the larger office, i.e., toward the door, with his right hand. At "doll-faced" he raises both hands. She folds her arms.)

HILDY. Well, you wouldn't take me if I hadn't been doll-faced.

WALTER. Well, why should I? I thought it would be a novelty - have a face around here a man could look at without shuddering. (He looks off right at "novelty" and then raises his shoulders several times and blinks as if shuddering.)

HILDY. (She puts her hands down and turns to face him. They both step back toward the table and assume a face-to-face pose. The camera starts to reframe left and moves in on them, which it does through to "you know it.") Listen, Walter . . .

Keeping up with Hawks - Style in Cinema - filmmaker Howard Hawks

Style, Fall, 1998 by Lea Jacobs

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