VIVACIOUS LADY

US, 1938, 90 minutes, black and white.
James Stewart, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Beulah Bondi.
Directed by George Stevens.

Vivacious Lady in the tradition of the American screwball comedies of the 1930s directed so well by people like Howard Hawks and featuring stars as Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant.

Ginger Rogers and James Stewart are a lively pair, and there is excellent support from Charles Coburn as a stiff-minded professor and Beulah Bondi as his wife. George Stevens is more used to direct ponderous films or more serious-minded films. His next film was Gunga Din. His handling of screwball comedy is not as fast-paced as the best of the genre. Ginger Rogers had finished most of her musicals with Fred Astaire and was to win the Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1940. James Stewart was only at the beginning of a very successful career, winning the Oscar also in 1940 for The Philadelphia Story. George Stevens was to win Oscars for best direction for A Place in the Sun, 1951, and Giant, 1956.

1. The appeal of American screwball comedy in the 1930s, now? Characteristics of fast pace, zany dialogue and situations?

2. The impact of the stars, the crispness of the dialogue, the conventions of romantic comedy, the critique of the types, especially the stiff the Middle American types has represented by Professor Morgan?

3. And helpful civil work the plots on screwball comedies? The comic tones, the underlying serious themes? Portrayal of characters? Control it situations?

4. James Stewart's style as Peter Morgan? Son of his father, serious-minded, suddenly falling in love and marrying? The bond with Francie? The tradition of old Sharon, his way of talking?
Francie and her changing him? His inability to cope with bringing her home, the scene at the station, confronting his father, his fiancée? His inability to tell his parents? Coping at class? Revelation of the truth and the aftermath? Peter Morgan has the gangly, awkward American hero?

5. The contrast with Ginger Rogers as Francie, at work in the cabaret, singing and dancing, good-hearted type? her falling in love? Appreciating Peter? Going back, arrival, her faux pas? Her fight with the fiancée and punching Professor Morgan? Her friendship with Keith, her presence in the classroom? Her wanting to tell the truth? Confrontation with the professor? The mother’s appreciation of the truth, prepared for when they exchanged cigarettes? Keith and Francie teaching Mrs. Morgan to dance? The pleasant side of the American woman?

6. The satirical presentation of the stuffy, professorial father and his refusal to listen to his children? The presentation of the meek American wife - using heart trouble as an excuse not to be worried? The bond with Francie, her decision to leave her husband?

7. The good-natured portrait of Keith as a friend and other man?

8. How humorous were the situations, the farcical nature of coincidences? The pacing of the situations? The discovery of the truth by Professor Morgan with the dancing, the long crying sequence in the train?

9. Critique of snobbery? The two wanting to break his image for tricking, and the reaction of the visiting education board?

10. The focus on decisions about love and career? The importance of the train sequence for the two women? The two men stopping the train and the reconciliation?

11. The happy ending, typical of this kind of film, appropriate? The presentation and reinforcement of traditional American values?