ABSTRACT
Howard Hawks’s early sound films, while not using much music, as was standard in the early 1930s, do generally adhere to the convention of having an overture and exit music over the opening and end credits. By the time Hawks made Twentieth Century in 1934 the new Cagney style had taken hold enough that John Barrymore could satirize this earlier theatrical style. Hawks fully explored the sonic developments throughout his career, using music, dialogue, and sound effects in consistently creative ways. Howard Hawks famously wanted his films to be “fun,” both for him and his colleagues to make and for his audiences to watch. Hawks’s films rarely make strong ideological points, and instead quietly convey Hawks’s essentially libertarian philosophy. Hawks’s films rarely challenge their audiences musically, like Fats Waller’s songs, but both artists keep their audiences on the edge of their seats, wondering what exciting event or line of dialogue, or what virtuosic piano run will happen next.
