Seeing how it appears to be ‘George Cukor Day’ on TCM (‘The Philadelphia Story’ is playing as I write this and I’m about to give ‘Her Cardboard Lover’, which I’ve never seen, a try) I thought I’d post this 1973 doc about him. It was made as part of an eight part PBS series created by Richard Schickel called ‘The Men Who Made The Movies’ and has a good deal of fine interview footage in it of Cukor. Most of it is shot in his famous ‘oval room’ which really needs to be seen to be believed for its elegance and period tastefulness. The doc itself is a bit heavy on footage from the movies–I would have liked more Cukor and less movie clips. But at the time this doc was made, these movies were not nearly as easily available for viewing as they are now. Your best bet was to hope to catch ‘Camille’ or ‘David Copperfield’ or ‘A Star Is Born’ on TV, chopped up with commercials and missing at least twenty minute of footage. Your local revival theater might show them occasionally, usually in execrable third generation dupe prints. So perhaps the long clips were necessary to set up much of Cukor’s subtle and distinct observations about actors, all of which are still valuable and resonant.