George Cukor: A Double Life

Filmography

F I L M O G R A P H Y Key: Sc: Screenwriter; Ph: Photography Producer and approximate running time appear in parentheses. Cast listings are partial. 1 9 3 0 Grumpy. Codirector: Cyril Gardner. Sc: Doris Anderson, from a play by Horace Hodges and Thomas Wigney. Ph: David Abel. Cast: Cyril Maude, Phillips Holmes, Paul Cavanagh, Paul Lukas, Frances Dade, Halliwell Hobbes, Dorris Luray, Olaf Hytten, Robert Bolder, Colin Kenny. (Paramount, 74 mins.) "Direction is legit and intelligent; casting superb; technic without fault." Abel, Variety The Virtuous Sin. Codirector: Louis Gasnier. Sc: Martin Brown and Louise Long, from a play by Lajos Zilahay. Ph: David Abel. Cast: Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Paul Cavanagh, Kenneth MacKenna, Eric Kalkhurst, Oscar Apfel, Gordon McLeod, Victor Potel, Youcca Troubetzkoy, Jobyna Howland. (Paramount, 80 mins.) "The one remarkable feature of the film is that [Kay] Francis wears beautifully accurate 1914 gowns, hats and hairdos." 373 Roger Dooley, From Scarface to Scarlett: American Films in the 1930s The Royal Family of Broadway. Codirector: Cyril Gardner. Sc: Herman J. Mankiewicz and Gertrude Purcell, from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman. Ph: George Folsey. Cast: Ina Claire, Fredric March, Mary Brian, Henrietta Crosman, Arnold Korff, Frank Conroy, Charles Starrett, Royal G. Stout, Elsie Edmonds, Murray Alper, Wesley Stark, Herschel Mayall. (Paramount, 82 mins.) "... a neatjest at theexpense ofthe Barrymore family . . . Cukor 's flair brilliantly shows through. . . . " Charles Higham, The London Magazine 1 9 3 1 Tarnished Lady. Sc: Donald Ogden Stewart. Ph: Larry Williams. Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, Clive Brook, Phoebe Foster, Alexander Kirkland , Osgood Perkins, Elizabeth Patterson. (Paramount, 83 mins.) "Bankhead acquits herself with considerable distinction, but the vehicle to which she lends her talent is no masterpiece." Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times Girls About Town. Sc: Raymond Griffith and Brian Marlow, from a story by Zoe Akins. Ph: Ernest Haller. Cast: Kay Francis, Joel McCrea, Lilyan Tashman, Eugene Pallette, Alan Dinehart, Lucille Webster Gleason, Anderson Lawler, Lucille Browne, George Barbier, Robert McWade, Louise Beavers, Adrienne Ames, Hazel Howard, Claire Dodd, Patricia Caron, Judith Wood. (Paramount, 90 mins.) ". . . a low-brow farce full of Babbitts and gold-diggers which displays a generous amount of flesh and lingerie incompatible with high comedy, but also a cheerful carnality synonymous with film vigor." Carlos Clarens, Cukor 1 9 3 2 What Price Hollywood? Sc: Jane Murfin and Ben Markson, adaptation by Gene Fowler and Rowland Brown of a story by Adela Rogers 374 St. John. Ph: Charles Rosher. Cast: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman , Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff, Brooks Benedict, Louise Beavers , Eddie Anderson. (David O. Selznick for RKO, 87 mins.) ". . . a witty and bitingparody of the film colony which parallels in some ways Wellman's A Star Is Born and Cukor's Fifties remake, the latter arguably his greatest film. As the waitress who rises to fame with the assistance of an alcoholic director (Lowell Sherman), Constance Bennett is engagingly tough and unsentimental . Although the ending descends to melodrama, Cukor's assured handling of the crisp Adela Rogers St. John dialogue gives the film a uniformity rare among RKO productions of this period." John Baxter, Hollywood in the Thirties A Bill of Divorcement. Sc: Howard Estabrook and Harry Wagstaff Gribble, from the play by Clemence Dane. Ph: Sid Hickox. Cast: John Barrymore, Billie Burke, Katharine Hepburn, David Manners, Henry Stephenson, Elizabeth Patterson, Paul Cavanagh, Gayle Evers , Bramwell Fletcher. (David O. Selznick for RKO, 80 mins.) "A young and new actress, Katharine Hepburn, has the luck to have been given the part of the daughter for her first appearance in films, and the gift to make that part glow with life and beauty, a life and beauty that does not come from mere appearance but from the direct projection of an inner nature. Theplaying of [the] actors rounds itself into a whole that the director has madeharmonious and convincing. And thepicture being so seriousand sincere in its material and so ably handled, belongs definitely among the films that are more than just good entertainment." James Shelley Hamilton, National Board of Review Rockabye. Sc: Jane Murfin and Kubec Glasmon, from the play by Lucia Bronder. Ph: Charles Rosher. Cast: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Paul Lukas, Walter Pidgeon, Jobyna Howland, Virginia Hammond, Walter Catlett, June Filmer, J. M. Kerrigan, Clara Blandick. (David O. Selznick for RKO, 71 mins.) "It emerges finally as a first-grade program picture, lachrymose but reasonable, brightened by Jobyna Howland's expert...