Arguing that a director alone can and must confer artistic unity on a motion picture, Phillips traces George Cukor's background as a stage director and movie-dialogue coach. His discussions of the films are organized thematically, making it possible to treat as a whole the Tracy and Hepburn vehicles, the many adaptations of stage plays and novels, and the few but striking musicals. He also examines Cukor's considerable reputation as a woman's director and concludes that the indefatigably professional Cukor is the prototype of the ideal Hollywood director, uncompromising and able to weather the vicissitudes of public taste and studio interference.