In the golden age of Hollywood, many filmmakers found their niche, and stuck to it. Director-producer Howard Hawks reveled in variety, taking on each new project as a fresh challenge, as if making good on a dare. Hawks tackled comedies, westerns, literary adaptations, gangster pictures, racecar thrills, and. outer space chills. No matter the genre, he treated each film with steely professionalism, unsentimental emotion, and an earnest engagement with each new milieu. Working effortlessly with Hollywood's biggest stars (Humphrey Bogart,  Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, John Wayne), including several he 'discovered' himself (Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Gail Hire), Hawks developed an unostentatious style that allowed his collaborators to shine. In the words of John T. Chance, "He's so good, he doesn't feel he has to prove it."