Vivacious Lady

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Movie
Original title Vivacious Lady
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1938
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director George Stevens
script Ernest Pagano
P.J. Wolfson
production George Stevens
for RKO Pictures
music Roy Webb
camera Robert De Grasse
cut Henry Berman
occupation

Vivacious Lady is a 1938 screwball comedy starring Ginger Rogers and James Stewart . Directed by George Stevens .

action

Peter Morgan is a shy botany teacher at Old Sharon College. One day Peter is sent to New York with orders to bring his fun-loving brother Keith back to the family's bosom. Instead of his uncle, Peter ends up bringing home a wife: the nightclub singer Francey Brent. The shock for the relatives and the entire faculty is deep. In general, one looks down from the pedestal of intellectual superiority at the tingle fishing artist. Especially Mr. Morgan sets heaven and hell in motion to free his beloved son from the clutches of this vamp. In an interview, he pointed out to Francey how damaging the connection would be for Peter's further career. In the end, Peter finally takes heart and puts his dominant father in his place.

background

In April 1937 George Stevens took over the work on the first solo project from Ginger Rogers , who became known since 1933, especially alongside Fred Astaire as part of the dancing screen couple. James Stewart's illness led to filming being interrupted until mid-December 1937. In the meantime, the originally used Fay Bainter and Donald Crisp have been replaced by Beulah Bondi and Charles Coburn . However, the studio's plans to replace James Stewart with Douglas Fairbanks junior were thwarted by Stevens and Rogers.

The plot has some overlap with the Joan Crawford film Burning Fire of Passion , also from 1938. In both films, a self-confident young woman from the big city comes through a hastily entered marriage into a completely different society with its own rules and fixed hierarchies. While Ginger Rogers has to defend herself against the reservations of her in-laws, Joan Crawford has to deal with the dominant older sister of her husband. The film historian Jeannine Basinger describes these constellations, which appear more frequently in productions in the 1930s and 40s, as “female initiation films”, in which the heroine first has to find herself through numerous resistances in an environment that is completely foreign to her.

Theatrical release

The cost of production was $ 703,000. At the box office, the film proved to be reasonably successful, bringing in revenues of $ 1,206,000 in the end, with a rather modest profit of $ 75,000 in the end.

Awards

At the Academy Awards in 1939 , the film received nominations in the categories

  • Best camera
  • Best tone

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