Comedy of manners, drawing room comedies, tragicomedies: these are all terms we might apply to the Cukor films I will discuss in this chapter, though two, Dinner at Eight, and The Women might also be considered ensemble come¬dies. They are films largely derived from Broadway successes, rewritten and reimagined for the screen by some of the best writers working in Hollywood alongside a director known not only for his sensitive work with actors but also for infusing drama into all his comedies, to shape both modes with great irony.

Dinner at Eight (1933) exemplifies the style Cukor brought to these sorts of films, and one can see a direct line from this film to The Women (1939), as both weave multiple narrative threads towards gatherings of a group, Dinner at Eight's arduously planned and star-crossed dinner party, and The Women's climatic confrontation in the women's lounge at an upscale New York City night club. This structure is shared to some degree by No More Ladies (1935), which Cukor finished after the illness of MGM director Edward H. Griffith, without wishing to assume directorial credit. This film's focus on marriage difficulties in its upper-class New York City milieu culminates in a party planned as revenge on a cheating husband, in which several of his former conquests and a wronged husband converge on a country house. This chapter will explore this structural dynamic of building narrative threads towards a climactic ensemble scene in these three films.

Concluding my discussion will be analysis of another, later Cukor film that has less of the ensemble characteristics: The Marrying Kind (1952). Its focus on working-class marriage sets it apart from the upper-class concerns of the other films, yet it shares their tragicomic mode.

All four films feature actors from whom Cukor encouraged fascinating perfor¬mances, including actresses in supporting roles, especially the “grand dames” Edna May Oliver in No More Ladies, Marie Dressler in Dinner at Eight, and Mary Boland in The Women. While much attention has been paid to Cukor's work with female stars, for which The Women, with its all female cast is exemplary, these films also have remarkable work by male actors, displaying male vulnerability and loss alongside masculine charms.