the audience applauded

A Masterpiece!

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is the only film that James Stewart and Ginger Rogers made together. They seemed to be having fun in the making of the picture. However, their plight in the plot of "Vivacious Lady" isn't much fun to them. But, what isn't funny for their characters is quite funny for those of us watching the film. The comedy in this love-at-first-sight romance is mostly in the situations with some funny dialog. It's a 1938 film, so Rogers even got billing ahead of Stewart. She plays Francey, a New York nightclub singer and dancer. He plays Peter Morgan, Jr., who expects to follow in his father's footsteps and one day be president of Old Sharon College. For the time being, he's an associate professor of botany. Peter was sent to New York to find and bring back his party-loving cousin, Keith (played by James Ellison).Peter and Francey get hitched. It was love at first sight and they have one night and morning on the town. But, Peter wants to break their marriage to his parents gently. So, he passes Francey off as Keith's girlfriend when the parents and his fiancé come to the train to meet them on their return from New York. Modern audiences get a picture of what travel was like in America in the first half of the 20th century. Of course, Peter has a hard time trying to find the right time to tell his parents, so we have the comedy set up in a number of scenarios. This soon resembles a game of cat and mouse until, finally frustrated at being unable to get a word in with his dad, Peter breaks the news. That leads to some more fun before it's over. Before that happens, though, one very funny scene has Francey and Helen (Peter's fiancé, played by Frances Mercer) in physical combat. Peter has brought his dad to meet Francey as his wife, and instead they come upon the female version of fisticuffs. The look on Francey's face and her words are riotously funny as she grips Helen by the hair and then flips her over her shoulder. This is one of those rare films when the divide between the leads and the supporting cast is not so clear. That's because the next three or four roles have so much to do with making the plot what it is. They all shine in their roles. Charles Coburn is Peter's dad and president of the college, and Beulah Bondi is wonderful as Peter's mother, Martha. Cousin Keith's occasional partying ways lead Peter senior to threaten parting of their ways – as in Keith being fired from the college staff. Supporting actors in lesser roles often get passed over, but this is a good film in which to note the comedic contributions of some others. Franklin Pangborn is the women's apartment building manager here, and plays the usual uppity, arrogant, stuffy character for which he was well known. Jack Carson has an almost cameo shot as the maître d' in the nightclub. And, the funniest scene in the entire film is owned by Willie Best who plays the train porter. Toward the end, as Martha and Francey each leave on the same train, unbeknownst to the other, the porter serves them in their compartments that are adjoining. The ladies go from tears, to happy reunion, back to tears, and from hungry to not hungry to hungry again. The porter's mood and expressions change accordingly, and Willie Best provides a very hilarious scene. As an African- American actor in the 1930s, playing a part that many had in those days (Blacks were the entire service staff of the American railways), Willie Best raised a good comedy a notch to a very good comedy by his performance in "Vivacious Lady."Here are some of the best lines in the film. Women's lounge attendant, "If my husband wouldn't let me smoke, I'd find me a way to get me a husband that would." Francey, "It depends on which you enjoy the most."Francey, "I think she's wonderful." Keith, "She is. She was my favorite aunt before she married my uncle."Peter, "Oh, sweetheart. Here we are arguing in public and nobody even knows we're married."Francey, "If she gets any closer to him, she'll be behind him." Helen, "You know, Peter and I are engaged to be married." Francey, "Oh, is that so?" Helen, "Not that I think knowing that would make a big difference to you." Francey, "Well, no." Helen, "You see, Peter needs protection against a certain type of woman." Francey, "Oh, I could work on that." Helen, "Now, are you going to mind your own businesses, or must I really give you a piece of my mind?" Francey, "Oh, I couldn't take the last piece." (The female fisticuffs begin after this, with Helen slapping Francey.)

...because your whirlwind courtship may not be the whole truth.The small university in the town where the Morgans live is practically a cottage industry for the family where Peter Morgan, Sr. (Charles Coburn) is university president, and his son Peter Jr. (James Stewart) is associate professor of botany being groomed to be president like his dad someday. Peter is sent to New York City by his dad to retrieve his cousin Keith who has taken up with a dance hall performer (Ginger Rogers as Francey). Keith sets up Peter to be embarrassed with a dirty trick that backfires and Francey and Pete hit it off and leave the dance hall to get to know each other.Pete and Francey spend the entire night walking the streets of New York, even bonding over corn on the cob in the park in the middle of the night. Not even Rudy Giuliani could ever dream of a New York this safe. They eat breakfast together and get married that morning. The chemistry between Rogers and Stewart is electric, and that may be because they had been an item in real life or maybe it was just because they were great actors, but it is palpable to anybody who can see. When they look into each others' eyes it is like they are mutually hypnotized.So Peter, Francey, and Keith come back on the train to New Sharon, and Pete plans to tell his parents right away...BUT...the train is met by Pete's dragon lady of a presumed fiancée, Helen (Frances Mercer), picked out by Pete's dad. In fact she is like Pete's dad in every way as far as being a dominating personality. Days drag on, and every time Pete plans to tell his parents something happens - usually some comic misunderstanding or it is just Pete Sr. talking over and walking on his son like he has done his entire life. The impression the family gets is that because Francey gets off the train and goes off with Keith is that she is the dance hall girl in question and Keith has dared to bring her back with him.Francey tries to be a good sport about all of the delays and misunderstandings but eventually she comes to the conclusion that the man she loves is a wimp who cannot stand up to his own father. It would be easy to just take her side and be mad at Peter for not being his own man, but Stewart plays the part very sympathetically. After all, he's been under dad's thumb for 26 years and only married for a few days.How will this all work out? Watch and find out. Beulah Bondi is endearing as Peter's mother who likes Francey from the beginning, as they share a split cigarette in the ladies' room, even before she knows who she is.

Produced and directed by George Stevens, with a screenplay by P.J. Wolfson and Ernest Pagano that was based on I.A.R. Wylie's story, this uneven romantic comedy features Ginger Rogers, in the title role, and James Stewart.Watching this film, I found myself both laughing out loud AND waiting for certain tired scenes to end (like the endless whistling at Rogers). Plus, I don't usually find the clichéd circumstance of a character deciding to get drunk (as Stewart's does), in order to solve a problem, amusing. Still, there are some absolutely hilarious, delightful scenes which make this one worth the 90 minutes it takes to watch it, despite the fact that there is little chemistry between its two leads (which may be the reason that this was their only film together). Like most films of this genre, "suspension of disbelief" is required to enjoy it at all.The cast also includes James Ellison, Beulah Bondi (whose scenes with Rogers are some of the best sequences), Charles Coburn, and little known Frances Mercer (in her first film; she made less than 10 films in the 1930's) in addition to several recognizable supporting actors: Franklin Pangborn, Grady Sutton as a befuddled teaching assistant, Jack Carson as a nightclub waiter (!), and Willie Best as an emoting train porter (in the slowest sequence near the end). Hattie McDaniel also appears uncredited as a maid. Cinematographer Robert De Grasse and Sound technician James Wilkinson earned their only Oscar nominations for their work on this film.While retrieving his cousin Keith (Ellison) from a drunken binge in New York, Peter Morgan Jr. (Stewart) falls in love and weds a nightclub singer named Francey (Rogers), who had been the object of Keith's obsession before Peter arrived. Their "meeting to marriage" happens within 24 hours. The three return home by train to the Morgans' small college town of Old Sharon, where Peter is a botany professor at the university; his staunch father is its president.Peter Morgan Sr.'s (Coburn) father had been president as well, and expects nothing less than his proper son to follow this tradition, in his footsteps. When Peter sees that his rather intimidating father is waiting at the station with Helen (Mercer), who was supposedly his fiancée, Peter tells Francey that he needs time to break the news of their nuptials to Helen, his conservative father, and his weak hearted mother (Bondi).Naturally, Keith jumps right in and volunteers to pretend that Francey is his girl, and they dash off - after Francey "checks out" Helen - leaving Peter wondering if he can trust his cousin. Initially, Francey even stays in Keith's flat until Peter insists that she move out, and into an all girls apartment (run by Pangborn, of course).The rest of the story from this point is sequence after sequence of interruptions and circumstances which prevent Peter from telling his parents that Francey is actually his wife AND keep the couple from consummating their marriage (one of the funniest scenes involve the two hoping a wall bed will fall into place).During this time, Keith, Peter, and Francey pretend that she is a new botany student at the university, and all the while she is caught in unflattering and improper incidents by Peter's uncompromising father, who still assumes she is one of Keith's trollops. One of these is at a prom, where Francey gets in a cat fight (more than just slapping) with the still unawares Helen; another is in her apartment, where stern Morgan Sr. catches her line dancing with Keith and Mrs. Morgan (his wife!), who'd earlier admitted to Francey that her weak heart was feigned. His disapproval causes Mrs. Morgan, who now knows that Francey is married to Peter Jr., to leave her husband, saying she's tired of 30 years of having to behave a certain way so as not to risk losing an endowment for the college, etc..Morgan Sr.'s brief but frank talk with Francey (e.g. she's not the right kind of girl for his son's future) causes her to leave Old Sharon. Francey and Mrs. Morgan, who had previously bonded, end up on the same train in adjoining berths and, after the aforementioned drunken sequence, Peters Jr. & Sr. realize what they've lost and chase after them ... so that the requisite happy ending can occur.

This unfortunately turned out to be a really bad movie. I love the comedies of the 1930s, and I've enjoyed a lot of movies with the same cast and the same director. This one starts out well enough, but about one third into the movie, the lack of a good script starts to manifest itself. The plot is made up of clichés and there are a few blatantly racist scenes (one has the legendary Hattie McDaniel, of "Gone with the wind"-fame just one year later, made to embody the caricature of a cleaning lady).There are so many good comedies of the 1930s that there is really no need to put up with this one. For a lovely, witty (and also non-dancing) Rogers, turn for example to "Bachelor Mother" (1939) with David Niven, which also has Charles Coburn in it; for James Stewart, (as blue-eyed and young) to the crazy Capra-directed "You can't take it with you" (1938); for George Stevens, why not go directly to his brilliant drama "A place in the sun" (1951) or, if you want to stick with comedy and the same era, to "Woman of the Year" (1942) with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.In any case, I wouldn't want to watch this one, unless you've made an oath to watch every single movie with Rogers or Stewart in it.