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is often credited with being the first film to use overlapping dialogue

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I absolutely LOVE this about Hawks. I was amazed the first time I saw The Thing at everyone in the Arctic camp talking over each other, and no line was necessarily more throw away or just put in for color than the other -- you actually got the feeling that these were real people relating normally. What a stunning shock! At least when compared to the movies of the last 30 years or so.

William Goldman wrote very well about the current habit of stars to insist that every line of good dialogue be taken from everyone else in the script and given to them. Many actors now even come with their own writer, who is expected to be able to rewrite parts of the script to their liking. This is why you often see similiar situations and bits of dialogue in some actors' successive movies. Taking all the good high points in the script for oneself turns a lot of movies very grey and dull, propping the lead actors against a lifeless background and back story that you're not sure you want more of or less of, because it seems so wan and drained. Star parts can be very one-note and it can seem like they're in an entire universe built only for themselves.

Compare to the lively world of Hawks, with everyone yapping, and the star getting out-quipped once in a while by the most casual passerby and seeming to think nothing of it. And it happens in wide angle, where you can see the life passing in and out of frame, going about its business, contributing to a feeling that you have not been treated to the perfect framing for a scene, but are actually seeing a piece of real life going on, with lots of interesting things in it. You get to pick and choose your focus in an interesting world, rather than being force fed the filmmakers' vision of the thumpingly obvious. It's wonderful to see Hawks letting a world be itself, and letting the audience appreciate and discover it. Watch for how many times any but the lead actors in modern pictures say anything of particular interest. In many of today's movies, there's not a single character worth paying attention to besides the stars, with maybe a sidelong glance to the main co-stars for a quick bit of color or some interaction that again redirects the focus to the star.

I wish we had more people directing today who would let the audience savor a scene in wide angle and discover things at leisure, like Welles, Renoir, Kurosawa, Ozu, and Hawks, rather than condensing all the good dialogue into one or two parts and then MTV'ing the whole mess into kibble.