Une fille dans chaque port

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.

This is what we call today a "guy film" in which two buddies share everything from drinking bouts to bar room brawls to girls. An early effort by director Howard Hawks, the bar and fight sequences are fast, at times comical and always colorful.

Another interesting thing about the film is that we get a chance to see what ordinary people looked like in the 20's. Being about two sailors and their adventures ashore, we a shown a much more exotic world than we might see today. Take for example when one of our heroes picks up a Dutch girl, dressed in full traditional Dutch costume which was common at the time. From our modern view, we expect her to act like some old fashioned Dutch doll, but instead she acts like any other teenaged girl who is out on a date with a hunk. It is a reminder that people haven't changed that much.

Louise Brooks is another treat in the film. A very extraordinary personality, Louise is the center of attention whenever she is on screen. The sexual tension is highly electric in her scenes. It was because of this film that she was chosen for her famous role as Lulu in "Pandora's Box" where she would make cinema history. All in all, although the film is not one of the greats, it certainly has some great moments and is well worth seeing.

The only reason this fllm seems to garner attention is due to Louise Brooks in the final segment. She is attractive enough but displaying little dramatic talent, just a show piece that any woman, actress or not, could have provided the film makers.

I am among those who just 'don't get" Louise Brooks, and I guess I will die unchanged. Nothing special at all in my book. She just had a "look," but no talent.

A buddy movie, that could be termed gay "but without any sex," just camaraderie devoid of the influence of the female.

This is quite the bromance from Howard Hawks. The tale of two men who connect through friendship more completely than they can with any romantic relationship with a woman. This is Hawks' first real movie that feels like a Hawks movie. This is his The Lodger, a solidly good silent film that presages what his future career would become.

Spike is a sailor going from port to port, packing up a ship at one and unloading it at the next. At every stop, he gets off to look for a woman in his little black book. The first stop is in Amsterdam, where he finds that the girl he had known now has several children and a husband, so he waves goodbye and crosses her name out of the book forever. The girl he looks for in Rio, he discovers has not been faithful to him either, and she carries a charm with her of a heart containing an anchor, the mark of another sailor. He grows livid, and when he gets to Panama, he runs into another sailor in a bar. Before they can get into a fight between themselves in the seedy bar, the guards show up and they decide to get into a fight with them instead. In prison the next day, Spike discovers that this other sailor, Bill, is the man who had given the charm away when he sees that the same symbol is in Bill's ring. With every intention of knocking out this man interfering with his lovemaking, Spike pays Bill's bail to get him out, wanders the streets of Panama City away from the police to try and start a fight without getting arrested again. In their search for a place to fight, the two end up bonding by throwing a guard into the water.

Spike and Bill are suddenly friends, and the path the two made to friendship is what really helps sell the film overall. I wrote in my review of Fig Leaves that one of the problems with silent films is the challenge of building specificity in characters. None of that issue is present in A Girl in Every Port. Spike and Bill are wonderfully drawn, complimenting each other as two manly men working the seven seas and backing each other and blocking each other in equal measure when it comes to women at port. They are a wonderful pair, and the movie's decision to spend the time actually building their relationship over the film's initial thirty minutes really helps sell the rest of the film.

After an amusing bit of Bill getting drunk and into fights that Spike must continually save him from while also trying to pick up a lady, Spike meets an exotic young circus performer while Bill remains on the ship with a toothache. Spike instantly falls in love with the beauty, even going so far as to offer her all of his saved money he wants to use to establish himself with a small house, for safe keeping only, of course, but when Bill finally meets the girl, Marie, he knows that she's nothing but trouble. They knew each other years back at Coney Island when she was his girl, and she even has his symbol tattooed on her arm (hidden by a band that Spike never sees). He knows she's going to take Spike for all he's worth, but how does Bill let Spike know? It would be one challenge if the girl was just some girl, but it's something else completely since Bill's mark is on her. How can Bill convince Spike of Marie's underhanded nature without turning Spike against himself?

That conflict, told lightly, balancing on a tone between drama and comedy rather deftly, is more than just a sitcom level issue with the ability to clear everything up with a single sentence. Bill can't just clear it up because to do so would possibly hurt his friend even more. This is where the actual character work and effort made to establish the two men's friendship pays off. It's easy to believe Bill's struggles, Spike's potential (and eventual) reaction to the reality around Marie. That it's done silently is actually fairly impressive as well.

The resolution involves two men finding their friendship to be more important than the affection of a dishonest woman. Two men who grew to love each other through their love of fighting and their job on board a sailing ship find that they can always count on each other. It's quite well done, perhaps leaning a bit more dramatically than it should at times but never far from an easy effort at a smile from the audience. A Girl in Every Port is an entertaining little gem of a find from early in Hawks' career.

It never ceases to amaze how, excepting rare instances, silent films often manage to be delightfully charming even if they don't immediately make a major impression. It helps the case of this one to be an early picture of iconic filmmaker Howard Hawks, one of the few surviving works of silent legend Louise Brooks, and moreover, a Fox Films production that wasn't consumed in the tragic vault fire of 1937. Setting aside the participants this may not be a feature that entirely stands out on its own - yet while perhaps not an absolute revelation, it's very ably made and solidly enjoyable, and a fine credit to all involved. 'A girl in every port' may not be a total must-see, but it's a fantastic classic on its own merits, and well worth checking out if one has the chance.

The writers give us a cheeky story of a womanizing lout cruising through various ports, coming into conflict with a fellow seaman who has the same habits, and ultimately finding brotherhood with him and further adventures. For all the social issues and other more serious notions that one could drum up as related points of discussion, the scenario is strictly played for comedy, and that pure intent makes it a good deal of fun from start to finish. The underlying story is solid and engaging in and of itself, but even more important in this case I think is the strong scene writing that gives us flavorful humor and apt guidelines for the actors, marked all the while with just the right measure of heart to help it to stick. Victor McLaglen and Robert Armstrong lead the cast with terrific performances of glad mirth and commendable expressiveness, and it's honestly a joy just to see them play around. One is rather inclined to think they didn't really need any instruction from Hawks to achieve such gay frivolity (and tinges of sincerity), but let there be no doubt that the man's direction is also wholly superb. Every shot and scene is orchestrated with a buzzing energy, not to mention frolicsome vitality, that squeezes every possible ounce of merriment out of every small moment. In fact, while I can hardly claim as of yet to have seen everything the director made, as far as I'm concerned this easily stands shoulder to shoulder with some of his best.

That excellence absolutely extends to cinematographers Rudolph J. Bergquist and L. William O'Connell, whose contributions reflect an active, dynamic mindfulness exceeding what one broadly associates with the silent era. Some shots in 'A girl in every port' are downright brilliant, for that matter, reflecting not just the gay spirit of the proceedings but an artistry that can't be said of all like fare. Those stunts and effects that are employed come off great, and even details like costume design, hair, and makeup are lovely. The production design and at direction, too, are just dandy, lending to the chipper tenor of the title and further demonstrating just how much skill, intelligence, and care went into it. And I hardly even need say how pleased I am to see Brooks here; she was a performer who was ahead of her time in some ways, particularly in the delicate nuance of her acting, and every opportunity to see her on the Silver Screen is a blessing.

There arguably comes a point in the latter half where the tone somewhat shifts, and the revels are traded in for more story-driven beats in a manner that feels imbalanced; as a consequence the picture might be uneven to some degree. More distinctly irksome, perhaps, is how the ending is a tad too neat and tidy, coming off a bit as Movie Magic more than earnest storytelling. But even at that, at large it's so tremendously smart in its craft, in every capacity - writing, direction, acting, all the work of those behind the scenes - that it forges ahead through the marginal roughness and is all-around stupendously entertaining. To the extent that this is less than perfect, the imperfections are minor.

Flawless it is not, yet while I certainly anticipated liking this when I sat to watch, still I'm taken with just how good it is. Every last trace of the feature conjured and assembled with welcome wit and thoughtfulness, and with a mind only for giving audiences a good time. That goal was very capably met, and between Hawks, McLaglen, and Armstrong, let alone Brooks or anyone else on hand, I don't know who deserves the most credit for its success. One way or another this remains an admirable slice of cinema past, and though as a matter of personal preference it may not appeal equally to all, I'd have no qualms recommending it to just about anyone. Suggested especially for fans of the era, or of those involved, 'A girl in every port' holds up well even more than ninety years later, and is well worth the time it takes to watch.