A man who directed some undeniable classics, though most are a bit too schmaltzy and cheesy. He's certainly not the worst of the classic directors, but I can't see him as anything more than a precursor to mindless Hollywood pulp.
Movies
One of the few big musicals I hadn't seen yet. It's not my favorite genre, so the 3-hour runtime was the main reason I'd been avoiding it. But musical are pretty solid Christmas fodder, so I figured this was a good time to give it a try. I'm glad to say it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, though it's far from a perfect film. Eliza Doolittle is a poor girl who sells flowers on the street. Her life changes when she meets an elite professor who vows he can turn Eliza into a lady in less than 6 months time. She accepts the challenge and moves in with the professor. While progress is slow, Eliza isn't willing to let this opportunity slip by. There's a surprising amount of comedy here I didn't expect. The characters are quite crude, which is actually pretty entertaining, and the plot is also rather amusing. The only thing holding this film back is the extravagant runtime. If they'd cut back the entire final hour to 5 minutes, this would've been a much better film.Read all
A romcom that isn't very funny, nor very romantic. Instead, prepare for a rather feminist story about a squeaky-voiced girl who likes being dumb, but blossoms into a fully fledged individual after being challenged by a new guy in her life. Subtle this ain't, then again, back then subtlety probably wasn't the way to go with this message. The film is based on a Broadway production and the writer of the dialogues is featured heavily on some posters, so don't expect a visual feast. All the yapping isn't very funny and gets annoying really fast. The plot has potential, but doesn't make much of an impact nowadays. A relic, but not the worst romcom of its time, even when it fails its primary genres.Read all
An old-fashioned romcom that loves to riff on the classic woman-man contradictions. Adam's Rib isn't particularly subtle about it (as if the title wasn't obvious enough) and it shouldn't be a big surprise that the situational comedy is pretty predictable. Then again, the film doesn't pretend to be anything more than basic genre work. Cukor leans heavily on the performances of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, but they fail to carry their characters beyond the stereotypical. Neither does Judy Holliday, but at least she's actually funny. The plot is pretty bland, and I'm not a big fan of situational comedy to begin with, but it's not the worst of its kind, thanks to do decent pacing and relatively short runtime.Read all
I'm certainly hitting a lot of Cukor films lately. This one reminded me a little of Hitchcock's work, though it was slightly more atmospheric. It's a mix of mystery and classic noir, but these films are simply too stuffy for me to thoroughly enjoy. Certainly when the film is almost 2 hours long. The mystery isn't all that exciting and the performances are pretty wooden. The cinematography is slightly above average though and Cukor plays around a bit with Paula's mania, but it's not exactly riveting material. These films work notably better when they remain below the 80-minutes mark.Read all
A classic Judy Garland musical. It's certainly an epic undertaking, even though the plot can't support the 180-minute runtime. The result is a lot of stuffing and an endless struggle to end the film on a proper note. It's no surprise they ended up cutting 27 minutes for the regular release, a version I wish I'd seen. The musical numbers aren't too great, the performances are a bit overdone (especially with the amount of drama present) and there are way too many "film in film" scenes to drive up the runtime. I think I might've enjoyed a 90-minute cut a lot better, this was just excruciating.Read all
It took me a while before I realized this was the blueprint for High Society, one of the more decent classics I've seen so far. The story isn't all that unique of course (two guys fighting over a girl), but after some of the details were revealed it was obvious I was watching more or less the same film. High Society was decent because of its charming cast. Sinatra, Crosby and to a lesser extent Kelly made the constant banter amusing and fun to follow. Grant, Stewart and Hepburn on the other hand are completely unfit for the task. Wooden performances, uncomfortable dialogues and complete lack of charm sink this film. Though director Cukor also bears some of the responsibility, as the direction feels flat and lifeless. In the end I couldn't care less about these characters. The comedy doesn't shine through, the film looks way too functional and at 110 minutes it's at least half an hour too long. Not good, they made the right choice remaking this one.Read all
In less than a decade, we went from moody and expressive silents to films where characters are just yapping away at each other for two hours straight. The Woman is branded a comedy but it isn't overtly funny, it's just a bunch of women trying to get their romantic affairs in order, delivered with a certain lightness. There are some big names attached to this project, so it's no surprise this film had little trouble keeping its classic status. It is built around annoying stereotypes though (these women never shut up and are shallow as hell), and the dialogues aren't funny at all. What remains is very little, apart from a lighter mood, making it a tiny bit easier to get through.Read all
A stage play put to film. Now, I'm a sucker for soundtracks and sound design, but when they first put sound on film, it resulted in a major setback. Rather than focus on the cinematic elements, films were dragged down by an endless barrage of boring conversations. Point in case: Dinner at Eight. It's a standard farce, the kind of play where everything happens in one or two rooms and various characters keep entering through doors. The conversations are boring, the performances are middling and the runtime is excessive. This is the exact opposite of what I want to see in a film, the only thing saving it from utter direness is the light tone.Read all
Romance, comedy, and some musical elements. And yet, the film isn't funny, the romance is icky at best and the musical elements are as dire as I'd feared. The advent of sound moved cinema away from some of its core strengths, in return we got a lot of films that were little more than recorded theater plays. There's a lot of talking, some doubty performances, and a few musical moments. The romance is anything but romantic, the comedy is little more than a lighthearted mood and the rhymes are pretty basic. It's a short film though, so it doesn't go on endlessly, but that's not much of a positive when nothing else stands out.Read all