LYCOS RETRIEVER 
George Cukor: Films
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Unlike the hedonistic films of the pre-Production Code early '30s, Cukor's films relied on the manners of a monogamous America. Films such as "Holiday" (1938) and "A Philadelphia Story" (1940) reflect this freshly scrubbed approach, an appealing antidote to today's shock-value, instant-gratification cinema. Though eminently entertaining, Cukor's films aren't limited to a trademark style. The term "Capraesque" is often used in reference to anything that Capra touched. No such term can be applied to George Cukor.
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[I]n 1934, Cukor directed a film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. When Cukor wanted Maureen O'Sullivan to produce real tears for a deathbed scene, he twisted her feet to make her cry. New York Times critic Andre Sennwald called the film "a gorgeous photoplay which encompasses the rich and kindly humanity of the original so brilliantly that it becomes a screen masterpiece in its own right … the most profoundly satisfying screen manipulation of a great novel that the camera has ever given us."
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It seems unfair to try to cram a career as rich as George Cukor's into a 90-minute film, but On Cukor does do an admirable job of covering all the highlights. Cukor has long taken a back seat to fellow Golden Age filmmakers John Ford, Howard Hawks, and William Wyler, but this film makes it clear that his achievements compare favorably with theirs.
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One afternoon, sitting by the swimming pool, Cukor watched Grant read the part. He had tears in his eyes--it was the finest performance he had ever seen Grant give. "Please, think about it again," Cukor said, "It's a terrific part." This time... Cukor knew he was bound to lose. Grant was considering retirement, but Cukor knew there was another reason for his refusal. The plot was too similar to the career of Grant, whose recent films were not successful.
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Despite his few ventures into film noir, Cukor was best known for a light-hearted mixture of sophistication and bandbox Hollywood corn at its best. Even his darkest works ("What Price Hollywood?", "Gaslight") have a glamorous sheen. His amazing ability to coax performances from divas (male and female) made him both a valuable team player and the savior of more than one film career. He ... brought a theatrical sensibility to films, never interrupting the flow of dialogue with fast cuts or self-concsious film techniques.
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If the primary virtues of a Cukor character include poise and independence, the flip side of those qualities is the self-destructiveness seen in the alcoholics who appear with surprising frequency in his films. Besides the characters played by Sherman, Barrymore, and Mason, other memorable alcoholics in Cukor films include Lew Ayres's wealthy young lush in Holiday, whose speech (by playwright Philip Barry) about the joys of drinking is one of the most finely shaded monologues in screen history; and Claire Bloom's suburban "nymphomaniac" in The Chapman Report (1962), a performance of such startling intensity and sensual abandon (even after the studio's recutting) that it suggests how powerfully Cukor could have responded, if he had been given more opportunity, to the increasing sexual freedom in films.
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