The George Cukor Thread

I'd fly in for Holiday, not the film classic version of "Born This Way."

Stevie, I've seen this one! Joel McCrea at the peak of his youthful smashability too, Alfred. (New Years Day):

GIRLS ABOUT TOWN (1931) 79 min, 35mm
Two girls, out to make their fortune in New York, loving and leaving wealthy businessmen, take a trip on a yacht, where they meet a Michigan millionaire and his young associate. Cukor said: “This was the period of the gold-diggers or playgirls, in reality, whores who charged 50 dollars an evening. Zoë Akins wrote these parts to perfection.”

now with all 50 films

http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/winged-victory-completes-our-cukor-retrospective

rowr

Bogdo opens up his card file

http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/the-george-cukor-file-part-1

and more... he likes almost everything

http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/the-george-cukor-file-part-2

http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/the-george-cukor-file-part-3

critics (also Jeffrey Wells for some reason) pick their favorite:

http://www.filmlinc.com/daily/entry/george-cukor-films-favorites-film-society-2013

cukor was very up-to-date on world cinema, and had much more catholic tastes than most in hollywood (and probably way more eclectic than you might expect a studio director to have)

he struck up a correspondence w/ bresson, was known to like warhol's films (and later paul morissey's), praised fassbinder, admired dreyer

not many (any?) hollywood filmmakers of his generation who were anything like that

Added 2013: While I still enjoy all the performances in this picture, I don't really like the intentions of the script, which were to dethrone and demystify the goddess Hepburn had become in the 30s. She is blamed for her own divorce, even though her husband was an alcoholic, as well as blamed for her father's philandering! Holiday, with the same two leads, the same writer and the same director, is an infinitely better movie. But this one is much more famous, unfortunately.

otm

yeah, well at least she doesn't burn breakfast like in Woman of the Year.

I'm seeing the one with Lana Turner today, which I'd never even heard of before, abd probably The Actress, in which Spencer Tracy is amazing as the father.

I saw Candice Bergen introduce Rich and Famous a couple weeks ago, and she said the first A.D. essentially directed the last 3 weeks cuz the work just wore GC down. "81 then was not like 81 today" was her explanation; Cukor became confused about where he was at some times. Bergen says quick pacing was his primary concern: "At a good clip, ladies!" R&F manages not to be awful despite a pretty bad script.

Also, Sylvia Scarlett, wow.

I was going to rent it until my records told me I did already in December '11.

i wasn't as impressed w/ sylvia scarlett as i wanted to be, but it's probably time to revisit it after a decade.

Grant and Edmund Gwenn do a lot of rough-hewn hoofing/movement -- it's like they're fresh from the music hall.

I remember seeing Richard Burton rave about Tracy in this scene -- he watched them shoot it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kltwQK3Mhs

the actress is a paddy chayevsky script or adaptation, right?

just checked: it's not. what movie am i thinking of?

...

it's the goddess: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051667/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_22

yes, The Actress was scripted from her own autobiographical play by Ruth Gordon. It's really solid; Tracy is near his best, supported by JS and Teresa Wright, looking plausibly older than 34 as Ruth's mother.

teresa wright moved frighteningly quickly from ingenue to playing matronly roles

teresa wright is the bomb btw

Brody on Cukor's themes of secrets and disclosure

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/12/the-celebrity-masks-of-george-cukor.html

The discreet charm of Cukor

David Phelps compares him to McCarey and LaCava as a "piano" director:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-second-hand-illusion-notes-on-cukor

Hepburn and Olivier really got a star vehicle worthy of them in Love Among the Ruins, which won a bunch of Emmys. It's maybe her flat-out funniest performance aside from Bringing Up Baby, and he does some really great Oliver Hardy takes reacting to her. (The tender stuff mostly works too.)

It's "unavailable" but seems to be on YouTube in its entirety -- shame about the quality, very nicely shot by Douglas Slocombe.

It Should Happen to You and Born Yesterday are two faves but I can't get anyone to watch them more than the first few minutes with me.

more Bogdo index cards -- nice Welles story at the very end.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/00000143-5a25-d395-a377-7e6faa680000

http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/the-cukor-file-part-5

holy shit alfred otm abt lew ayers in holiday. completely robbed the movie for me. his monologue to k-hep abt what it's like to get drunk just stopped it. the realest saddest thing. runners-up: "mother tried to be a seton a while, till she gave up and died" and his exit line: "and... to grandfather!"

Here's a list..

A Woman's Face is addled in the best way.

Rich and Famous comes to the Warner Archive: https://www.wbshop.com/products/rich-and-famous-1981-mod

Koresky on Sylvia Scarlett

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-then-1935-katherine-hepburn-cary-grant-george-cukor/

A marvelous read, and I've enjoyed his series.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/films/05f931fc02d365516a299774f13732fb/w0FMh8OYztwqUX6hYASaLhdr7lmeXL_small.jpg

Coming In January!

The 20% of Dinner at Eight that is pure soap opera I'm happy to ignore, given how dazzlingly crafted the rest of it is. Harlow, Dressler, Billie Burke, Lee Tracy (who has two great long scenes with John Barrymore) all near career heights. Wallace Beery and Harlow are doing an early (better) version of Born Yesterday.

And Lionel Barrymore is almost... restrained? How the hell did Cukor pull that off? (Maybe just by whispering "Dressler will eat you alive.")

also... Marie Dressler's Carlotta has a dog named Mussolini, but they redubbed it as "Tarzan" by release date.