In Only Angels Have Wings, a bunch of real men risk their lives on a nightly basis flying the mail over the Andes. The mail? I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad if they were risking their lives to save the world from evil Nazis or something like that. But is it worth putting your life on the line for a paycheck? It is if you’re in a Howard Hawks movie, where the men are men and the women are glad of it. Whenever one of the pilots dies, if someone mentions his name, they ask, “Who?”  Real men aren’t sentimental.

In the midst of all that, a new pilot shows up who is known to be a coward, and so naturally he has to prove himself by being a hero. Jean Arthur falls in love with Cary Grant five minutes after she meets him, but it takes him a whole week to fall in love with her, right after she shoots him.  For a real man, that’s what is known as foreplay.