This book is a comprehensive biography of the legendary film director Howard Hawks. It chronicles his life and career, from his early days in the silent film era to his later successes in the Golden Age of Hollywood. It examines his many classic films, including Scarface,
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. The critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American director who is not a household name." 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." He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Sergeant York (1941) and earned the Honorary Academy Award in 1974.