The Top 5 Comedy Directors from Hollywood's Golden Age

To help you sort out the great comedy directors of yesteryear and their most beloved films, or to get you started on becoming helplessly hooked on comedies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, check out these five funnymen and get acquainted with their best work:

Frank Capra

Capra fairly invented the screwball comedy with It Happened One Night in 1934, but many of his comedies were actually tinged with drama. They were also often sentimental, leading to his work being referred to as "Capracorn." Other signature comedies include Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Capra also directed several classic dramas: The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Lost Horizon, and Meet John Doe -- the latter often categorized as a comedy-drama, though it shows Capra's darker side. And speaking of darker sides, there's Capra's crowning achievement, It's a Wonderful Life. He also directed World War II propaganda films like Why We Fight.

George Cukor

Cukor's best-known comedies include the excellent Holiday and The Philadelphia Story, both starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn (plus James Stewart in the latter), as well as two of Hepburn's nine pairings with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike. (Cukor and Hepburn worked on ten films together.) Additional credits include the Judy Holliday films Born Yesterday and It Should Happen to You. He also directed the star-packed early sound film Dinner at Eight -- a mild drawing-room comedy -- and classics such as A Star Is Born and My Fair Lady. Cukor was replaced as director of The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming took his place on both productions). Five of 20 Oscar-nominated actors he worked with won the statues. Twelve of the 20 were women, and he was known as a woman's director -- so, of course, he directed The Women.

Howard Hawks

Hawks was a larger-than-life Hollywood figure who never won an Oscar (until he was given an honorary award in 1974 for just that reason), though he was a master of several genres. Among his many triumphs are two of the greatest screwball comedies of all time, Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday, which feature two of his distinctive touches -- absurd situations and rapid-fire dialogue. Two later comedies, both starring Marilyn Monroe -- Monkey Business and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -- are a notch lower on the scale but still superior entertainment. Hawks, known for his macho personality, also directed several great manly adventures and dramas -- Scarface, Only Angels Have Wings, and Sergeant York -- and two Humphrey Bogart classics: The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. Westerns Hawks directed include Red River and Rio Bravo and the latter's loose remake, El Dorado.

Ernst Lubitsch

Lubitsch's sophisticated comedies were so distinctive that they were was identified as having "the Lubitsch touch." He spent most of his career working on silent films, first in his native Germany (where he also acted), and then in Hollywood. His most memorable films are Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be, but there are just as many more worth watching: Design for Living, The Merry Widow, Heaven Can Wait, and Cluny Brown. Unfortunately, he died fairly young -- at 55 -- or there would certainly be even more to savor.

Preston Sturges

This writer/director/producer, known for his sharp, satirical wit, directed only 13 films, but some are among the best screwball comedies. The consecutive hits The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Palm Beach Story, in the midst of seven back-to-back hits made just before and during World War II, are essential viewing for anyone interested in the genre. Among his later films, only Unfaithfully Yours is recommended. He got his break when he agreed to sell his script for The Great McGinty for $1 if he were allowed to direct it; it was the best $1 Paramount ever spent. His best script-only work was Twentieth Century, directed by Hawks.