The Discreet Charm of George Cukor

George Cukor was one of Hollywood’s most successful and versatile filmmakers: a master of the musical drama, the screwball comedy, the domestic thriller, and the literary adaptation—not to mention a legendary director of actresses, guiding the likes of Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Judy Garland to career-defining performances. In collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival, we present a complete overview—the first in many years in New York—of the director’s remarkable career.

The Actress

George Cukor

35mm
The Actress

1953|

USA|

90 minutes

Jean Simmons is radiant as a young woman itching to flee her sleepy New England town for a big-city acting career in this tender family comedy from an autobiographical play by Ruth Gordon.

Adam’s Rib

George Cukor

35mm
Adam’s Rib

1949|

USA|

101 minutes

Introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich and Locarno Film Festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian on December 14!

Feuding lawyer spouses Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy let their domestic power struggles spill over into the public sphere when they end up on opposite sides of a high-profile murder trial.

Bhowani Junction

George Cukor

35mm
Bhowani Junction

1956|

USA|

110 minutes

Cukor adapts John Masters’ 1954 novel about an Anglo-Indian woman (Ava Gardner) torn between lovers and national allegiances in the midst of de-colonization.

35mm
A Bill of Divorcement

1932|

USA|

69 minutes

When the head of the Fairchild family returns for Christmas after 15 years in a psychiatric institution, his ex-wife flees but his daughter (Katharine Hepburn in her screen debut) breaks off her own engagement to be with him.

The Blue Bird

George Cukor

35mm
The Blue Bird

1976|

USA|

99 minutes

Long out of circulation, Cukor’s unlikely adaptation of the celebrated 1908 Maeterlinck play was the first ever American-Soviet co-production and is headlined by a trio of Hollywood greats: Liz Taylor, Ava Gardner, and Jane Fonda.

Born Yesterday

George Cukor

35mm
Born Yesterday

1950|

USA|

103 minutes

Introduction by film editor (and Judy Holliday's son) Jonathan Oppenheim at the 8:30pm screening on December 29!

An unscrupulous tycoon (Broderick Crawford) hires a journalist (William Holden) to cultivate his ditsy chorus-girl mistress (Judy Holliday in an Oscar-winning turn), but doesn’t expect the two to hit if off so well…

Camille

George Cukor

35mm
Camille

1936|

USA|

109 minutes

Greta Garbo’s magisterial turn as a doomed 19th-century Parisian courtesan in Cukor’s lavish adaptation of Dumas, fils’ The Lady of the Camelias is widely considered one of the all-time great screen performances.

The Chapman Report

George Cukor

16mm
The Chapman Report

1962|

USA|

125 minutes

Four suburban women (Jane Fonda, Glynis Johns, Shelley Winters, and Claire Bloom) are grilled about their sex lives in this (very) thinly disguised reflection on the then-still-contentious Kinsey Reports.

The Corn is Green

George Cukor

DVD

1979|

USA|

99 minutes

Free screening!

In their final collaboration, Cukor regular Katharine Hepburn stars as the willful schoolteacher Lily C. Moffat, whose efforts to set up a school in a Welsh coal-mining town are met with local opposition. Complimentary tickets will be available at the box office on a first-come, first-served basis starting one hour prior to the event. Limit one ticket per person, subject to availability.

David Copperfield

George Cukor

35mm
David Copperfield

1935|

USA|

130 minutes

Cukor’s Copperfield is a rich, comic, humane panorama of 19th-century British life, featuring a remarkable turn by W.C. Fields and a screenplay by the great British novelist Sir Hugh Walpole.

Dinner at Eight

George Cukor

35mm
Dinner at Eight

1933|

USA|

111 minutes

This unsparing send-up of upper-class pretentions and fascinating window into the anxieties—social and economic—of mid-Depression America teeters masterfully between stone-faced comedy and tragic farce

A Double Life

George Cukor

35mm
A Double Life

1947|

USA|

104 minutes

Ronald Colman, in his only Oscar-winning performance, plays a beloved thespian whose Othello complex ultimately drives him to madness and murder.

Edward, My Son

George Cukor

35mm
Edward, My Son

1949|

USA|

112 minutes

Spencer Tracy plays (with chilly malevolence) an amoral businessman and Deborah Kerr is his long-suffering wife in this essential showcase for Cukor’s gift at dramatic atmosphere.

Gaslight

George Cukor

35mm
Gaslight

1944|

USA|

114 minutes

A young opera singer (Ingrid Bergman) haunted by her aunt’s murder marries a handsome pianist (Charles Boyer) and settles down in her relative’s long-abandoned London mansion, where footsteps echo in the attic, gaslights dim, and secrets come to light…

Girls About Town

George Cukor

35mm
Girls About Town

1931|

USA|

79 minutes

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.

Grumpy

George Cukor

35mm
Grumpy

1930|

USA|

74 minutes

In his country home, an eccentric retired barrister investigates the theft of a diamond brought from South Africa by the fiancé of his granddaughter Virginia, revealing a web of intrigue and romance.

Heller in Pink Tights

1960|

USA|

100 minutes

Sophia Loren plays the star of a theater troupe touring the Old West, with Anthony Quinn as her poker-faced husband and Steve Forrest as her hired-gun object of desire.

Digital Projection
Her Cardboard Lover

1942|

USA|

93 minutes

The great Norma Shearer gave her last performance in this adaptation of a 1926 farce by Jacques Deval (translated by P.G. Wodehouse!) about a young woman who, in a last-ditch effort to fend off a stubborn ex, hires a man to pose as her new lover.

Holiday

George Cukor

35mm
Holiday

1938|

USA|

95 minutes

Cukor’s gracious, delicate comic masterpiece follows an eager young businessman (Cary Grant) with a drive for adventure as he gets engaged to a society beauty (Doris Nolan), only to fall instead for her vivacious sister (Katharine Hepburn).

35mm
It Should Happen to You

1954|

USA|

86 minutes

Jack Lemmon gave his breakthrough performance alongside the great Judy Holliday in this sharp satire of modern celebrity culture that serves as a touching time capsule of a vanished New York.

Justine

George Cukor

35mm
Justine

1969|

USA|

116 minutes

This intoxicating, rarely screened adaptation of Lawrence Durrell’s beloved novel features an unfamiliar scenery (an incense-heavy, pearl-encrusted Egypt) and an all-star European cast (Anouk Aimée, Anna Karina, Dirk Bogarde, and Philippe Noiret).

35mm
Keeper of the Flame

1942|

USA|

100 minutes

One of Cukor’s most explicitly political films, Keeper of the Flame re-united offscreen couple Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn after their smash hit earlier the same year with George Stevens’ Woman of the Year.

Les Girls

George Cukor

35mm
Les Girls

1957|

USA / Canada|

114 minutes

Hailed by Andrew Sarris as a musical Rashomon, Cukor’s glorious CinemaScope bauble stars Gene Kelly as a dance troupe impresario who gives one of three differing accounts when one of his dancers accuses another of libeling her in a tell-all memoir.

Let’s Make Love

George Cukor

DCP
Let’s Make Love

1960|

USA|

119 minutes

Let’s Make Love finds Marilyn Monroe at the peak of her powers: vital, eager, playful, in some moments strikingly naïve, in others profoundly aware of her influence on the men in her orbit (Yves Montand, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, and Milton Berle).

A Life of Her Own

George Cukor

35mm
A Life of Her Own

1950|

USA|

108 minutes

Cukor’s 1950 melodrama about a successful model (Lana Turner) and her ill-fated affair with a married man suffered from studio interference and low enthusiasm, but went on to gather a base of critical supporters, not least among them François Truffaut.

Little Women

George Cukor

35mm
Little Women

1933|

USA|

116 minutes

Katharine Hepburn and Joan Bennett star in Cukor’s adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic about a group of small-town sisters growing up in the shadow of the Civil War.

35mm
Love Among the Ruins

1975|

USA|

103 minutes

Katharine Hepburn stars as a widowed actress in Edwardian London who seeks out a long-ago lover (Laurence Olivier) to serve as her lawyer in a sensitive personal case.

The Marrying Kind

George Cukor

35mm
The Marrying Kind

1952|

USA|

92 minutes

In the chambers of a divorce court, a couple (Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray) re-play their creaking marriage blow-for-blow: the sun-dappled meeting in Central Park; the speedy marriage; the first home; the difficulty coping; the petty resentments; the drifting apart.

The Model and the Marriage Broker

1951|

USA|

103 minutes

Thelma Ritter’s marriage broker enters this lovely, minor-key comedy doing what she does best: fixing up a parade of shy and lonely souls (including Zero Mostel) and stubbornly bottling up her own heartbreak in the process.

My Fair Lady

George Cukor

My Fair Lady

1964|

USA|

170 minutes

To George Bernard Shaw’s story of a wealthy professor (Rex Harrison) who resolves to transform a poor flower girl (Audrey Hepburn) into a society lady, Cukor brought a delicate touch, a vast reserve of empathy, and a perfect measure of devilish wit.

Our Betters

George Cukor

35mm
Our Betters

1933|

USA|

83 minutes

A British lord begrudgingly marries an American heiress for her money only to have her turn into a force among high society in this biting satire on the snobbery of Britain’s upper classes in the 1930s

Pat and Mike

George Cukor

35mm
Pat and Mike

1952|

USA|

95 minutes

Unfortunately, Peter Bogdanovich can no longer attend the December 14 screening. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Cukor re-united with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn for this delightfully mellow portrait of a determined athlete who escapes the clutches of her controlling boyfriend, only to get dangerously close to her gruff promoter.

35mm
The Philadelphia Story

1940|

USA|

112 minutes

Of all the Hollywood classics, few have aged so little, or so well, as this comedy of remarriage centered on warring trio Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant.

Rich and Famous

George Cukor

35mm
Rich and Famous

1981|

USA|

117 minutes

Introduction by star Candice Bergen at the 6:30pm screening!

Cukor’s final film follows two college friends (Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen) through 20 years of marriage, success, jealousy, frustration, falling outs, and reconciliations. With Meg Ryan in her first acting role.

Rockabye

George Cukor

35mm
Rockabye

1932|

USA|

73 minutes

A Broadway actress with a complicated past falls in love the with playwright of her new hit play, but after discovering he has a newborn child she leaves him for her devoted manager.

The Royal Family of Broadway

1930|

USA|

82 minutes

Cukor’s first movie on the world of show business and its dazzling play of mirrors is also a parody of his friends the Barrymores, America’s first theatrical family.

A Star Is Born

George Cukor

35mm
A Star Is Born

1954|

USA|

154 minutes

A musical remake of the 1937 Janet Gaynor/Fredric March drama, Star was produced as Judy Garland’s return to the screen after a four year absence and won her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Susan and God

George Cukor

35mm
Susan and God

1940|

USA|

117 minutes

Cukor’s first of two collaborations with Joan Crawford was this daring tragicomic study of a society woman whose frivolous, self-satisfied tendencies take on a dangerous tint when she falls under the sway of a popular religious cult.

Sylvia Scarlett

George Cukor

35mm
Sylvia Scarlett

1935|

USA|

95 minutes

In a scheme to help her embezzling bookkeeper father escape Marseilles for London, young Sylvia (Katharine Hepburn) cuts her hair, dons a fedora, and changes her name to Sylvester. En route, they encounter a “gentleman adventurer” (Cary Grant, at his most louche) and together the trio starts grifting. Condemned by the Legion of Decency, Cukor’s Sylvia Scarlett is a gender-bending picaresque tale in which the terms of erotic identification are constantly, cleverly evolving, for the cast and audience alike.

Tarnished Lady

George Cukor

35mm
Tarnished Lady

1931|

USA|

83 minutes

After marrying a wealthy suitor, a worldly-wise woman (Tallulah Bankhead) realizes her mistake and attempts to get back with the writer she believes she loved, but is thwarted by her life’s unexpected turns.

35mm
Travels With My Aunt

1972|

USA|

109 minutes

Maggie Smith is a vivacious septuagenarian with a fortune-teller lover and some shady business dealings in Cukor’s quick-footed, emotionally nuanced Graham Greene adaptation.

Two-Faced Woman

George Cukor

35mm
Two-Faced Woman

1941|

USA|

90 minutes

A ski instructor (Greta Garbo) falls for a bigshot magazine editor; they marry; he returns to the city on business; she follows him disguised as her flirtatious (and nonexistent) sister. Soon, the jig is up, and husband and wife wind up stuck in a spiral of mutual deception.

The Virtuous Sin

George Cukor

35mm
The Virtuous Sin

1930|

USA|

80 minutes

During WWI, a wife offers herself to a general in order to save her husband from the firing squad. In her search for freedom the young woman finds true love with the general, and her husband eventually agrees to let her go her way.

35mm
What Price Hollywood?

1932|

USA|

88 minutes

Cukor’s first film with David O. Selznick was a prototype for the various versions of A Star is Born, with an insider’s view of Hollywood that follows the rise to stardom of a waitress “discovered” by an ace director.

Wild Is the Wind

George Cukor

16mm
Wild Is the Wind

1957|

USA|

114 minutes|

English and Italian with English subtitles

In this full-throttle melodrama, a torrid tale of lust and betrayal plays out against the backdrop of the American Southwest. Magnani earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as the wife of a Nevada rancher (the equally explosive Anthony Quinn) driven into the arms of another man (Anthony Franciosa).

Winged Victory

George Cukor

16mm
Winged Victory

1944|

USA|

130 minutes

In 1944, Cukor returned to civilian life after a six-month stint in the Signal Corps and was quickly assigned this Army-commissioned portrait of five aspiring Air Force pilots (based on a play by Moss Hart, who would re-team with Cukor for A Star Is Born)

A Woman’s Face

George Cukor

16mm
A Woman’s Face

1941|

USA|

106 minutes

This dreamlike, psychologically acute noir about a disfigured woman stuck in a life of crime, adapted from a Swedish Ingrid Bergman vehicle, features a daring and brilliant turn by Joan Crawford.

The Women

George Cukor

35mm
The Women

1939|

USA|

133 minutes

Norma Shearer, Joan Fontaine, and Rosalind Russell lead a gaggle of New York society women who spend their days in gossip, petty rivalries, divorce ranch showdowns, and copious chatter about men, not one of whom ever appears on screen.

General Public
$10
Members, Student & Senior
$7

December 13 – January 7

George Cukor was one of Hollywood’s most successful and versatile filmmakers: a master of the musical drama, the screwball comedy, the domestic thriller, and the literary adaptation—not to mention a legendary director of actresses, guiding the likes of Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Judy Garland to career-defining performances. In collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival, we present a complete overview—the first in many years in New York—of the director’s remarkable career.

Special holiday ticket prices! See five films for just $25 with our Discount Package!

Head to our YouTube channel to check out a series of fun trailers for the retrospective!

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