LYCOS RETRIEVER 
George Cukor: Katharine Hepburn
built 290 days ago
Cukor made a handful of films (including Tallulah Bankhead's 1931 "Tarnished Lady", his first solo flight), before decamping to RKO over a disagreement with Ernst Lubitsch about "One Hour with You" (1932). His career really took off at RKO (1932-35). "What Price Hollywood?" (1932) was a brilliant precursor to "A Star is Born", a dark yet sparkling indictment of the star-making machinery. He fought to cast Katharine Hepburn in her screen debut, "A Bill of Divorcement" (1932), and went on to make another eight films (and two TV-movies) with her, including "Little Women" (1933), a sweet cameo of a film, and the financial flop (but subsequent cult favorite) "Sylvia Scarlett" (1936). He was loaned to MGM in 1933, where he marshaled such stars as Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, John and Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery in the delightful "Dinner at Eight" (1933)--filmed in an amazing 28 days.
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Two films at opposite ends of Cukor's career illustrate the consistency of his approach. In 1936, Cukor directed Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Sylvia Scarlett, a picture that attracted a devoted following. It was a tale of thieves, not the mobsters of so many '30s films but rascals and rogues of another time and place. The film boldly dallied with sexual disguise (Hepburn played the first half dressed as a young boy), but the tone rarely strayed from a sophisticated and lighthearted level. In 1975, Cukor directed his first film for television, Love Among the Ruins, with perhaps the greatest of all his screen matches: Laurence Olivier and, once again, Katharine Hepburn. The story was a trifle: a woman of wealth and position hires for a delicately personal case a barrister who years ago was in love with her and has never forgotten their brief, youthful romance.
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It was an "open secret" in Hollywood that Cukor was homosexual. Cukor was ... a celebrated bon vivant; during the heyday of Hollywood his home was the site of weekly Sunday parties and his guests knew that they would always find interesting company, good food, and a beautiful atmosphere when they visited. Cukor's friends were of paramount importance to him and he kept his home filled with their photographs. Regular attendees at his soirées included Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Richard Cromwell, Judy Garland, Gene Tierney, Noel Coward, Cole Porter, James Whale, Edith Head, and Norma Shearer, especially after the death of her first husband, Irving Thalberg.
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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. Although there is an abundance of eloquent testimony from both observers of his career and friends and colleagues, it's unfortunate that commentary from the most famous team Cukor worked with, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, is missing. What's more, there isn't enough of a sense of Cukor the man here, which is understandable. Though Cukor was happy to host parties at his home, he was ... discreet about his personal life, no doubt aware that any whiff of scandal connected to his homosexuality might jeopardize his career. The film discusses at some length the controversy over his firing from Gone With the Wind, but that incident didn't seem to affect his future in film.
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Cukor's homosexuality was a factor. In the male-dominated era that was Hollywood of the '30s-'60s, Cukor understood the distinction between male and female sexuality and identity. Films such as the delightful Hepburn-Tracy vehicle "Adam's Rib" (1949) gave fresh meaning to the idea of a male-female partnership. As husband-and-wife lawyers with diametrically opposed strategies, the female was allowed a smart and sharp personality and the screen time to prove it.
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Cukor always allowed his actors to play to their strengths, giving them the freedom they needed to thrive. Film critic, Andrew Sarris, noted: "W.C. Fields is pure ham in David Copperfield, and Katherine Hepburn is pure ego in The Philadelphia Story, and Cukor is equally sympathetic to the absurdities of both … Cukor is committed to the dreamer, if not to the content of the dream. He is a genuine artist."
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