Vivacious Lady (1938)

Some reasons I love this movie:

1. When Professor Peter Morgan (Jimmy Stewart) falls in love at first sight with night club singer/dancer Francey (Ginger Rogers), I believe it.
2. So many crazy scenarios are made possible by Peter's decision to wait before telling his very conservative university president father that he has married the unknown Francey during a trip to New York. Unfortunately, Peter doesn't manage to tell his family about Francey for a long long time.

3. Although Peter's cousin Keith shows early signs of wanting Francey for himself, when Peter and Francey are forced to spend their first night apart, Keith brings them each one of the toppers from their wedding cake to keep them company.

4. Ginger Rogers is tough. As Francey, she takes the woman who wants to be Peter's fiance and flips her right over her shoulder. She was provoked. A very funny scene.
5. The dance scene...
Three stars because the acting was great and the plot was really very funny. It think it lost that fourth star just for being a little too long. There were just a few too many crazy hijinks keeping the couple apart. Apparently TCM agrees. They called it "everlong." But I would definitely see this again.

Swing Time (1936)

To cuff or not to cuff? Another silly, but fun, film. I found it was best not to think too much about the plot.

Lucky (Fred Astaire) is about to get married, but his band members are concerned marriage will get in the way of the band's future. The film opens with Lucky's band members very skillfully tricking him out of getting to his wedding on time just by drawing cuffs onto the pant legs of a man in a magazine and telling Lucky that cuffed pants are in. Lucky has to go off and get his pants cuffed (minutes before the wedding, we are led to believe), discovers his pants are un-cuffable, and misses his wedding. He is then told that he has to raise a whole lot of money before he can be allowed to try to marry his spurned fiance again. So Lucky goes off to New York with the band to play and gamble, and he meets Penny (Ginger Rogers).

Penny is a dance instructor and wants nothing to do with Lucky after he annoys her on the street. Lucky pretends to need dance lessons, though, messes with her for a while, and then before you know it, they are an amazing team.

Lucky starts to think that maybe he doesn't want to raise all that money to marry his old fiance. I appreciated that Astaire and Rogers sang and danced to "A Fine Romance," a song that I love, during a snowy getaway together. Not the most exciting dance ever, but fun. And they got to wear fantastic hats.
Then suddenly, over an hour into the film, blackface? Why? Apparently the scene is some loved tribute to Mr. Bojangles, and we're supposed to be really excited that Astaire can dance with shadow selves. Hmmm... It's just always a bit hard to forgive these moments. I know the film is old, but people still could have had more sense.

Fun film, but two stars. Not my favorite Astaire and Rogers plot.

The Talk of the Town (1942)

I learned a new game from this movie. Next time you're walking down the street with a friend, the first one of you to spot a man with a beard should call out, "Beaver!" and lick their thumb. Some random girls walking down the street of the small town where this movie takes place get to yell beaver at Professor Lightcap (Ronald Colman). Professor Lightcap needs his beard, because until he grew one, women winked at him and people were prone to calling him "sonny."

This is a fun but also very long movie. I can't remember exactly how long it was, and it may not really have been much longer than two hours, but it felt long. It just kept going and going. Not without a purpose, though. At the beginning of the movie local semi-political activist Leopold Dilg (Grant) is indicted for arson (someone has burned down the town mill!) and murder (a man has died in the fire!). Leopold escapes from jail and makes it to a rental house owned by Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur). After a bit of craziness, she agrees to hide him until his lawyer can help him. The new renter, prominent law professor Lightcap, shows up 12 hours earlier than expected, though, and hilarity ensues.

Why Grant's last name is Dilg is beyond me. Leopold about his name: "Stop saying 'Leopold' like that, tenderly. It sounds funny. You can't do it with a name like Leopold"

One of the reasons I get a kick out of this movie, is that for the first portion of it, the professor sits around having discussions about the law with Leopold, who he is introduced to as Joseph the gardener. He is so pleased to have met a philosophical gardener that he can almost suppress his condescending tone when talking to him. (The professor often struggles to suppress this tone, for example when he proposes to Miss Shelley by telling her he has an opening for an important job in Washington. It would be “more than a secretary…It would be an important job for life…”) The professor is so taken with Joseph the gardener that he even takes the time to pick up a special order of borscht with a raw egg mixed in for him during a trip to town, because he knows that Joseph will be beside himself with joy when he gets the borscht. Here are the professor and Leopold bonding over chess...



Unfortunately for Leopold, the borscht leads to his downfall with the professor. As Professor Lightcap unwraps the newspaper from around the bottle of borscht, he sees Leopold's face on the front page of the paper. He has been tricked by Leopold and Miss Shelley! As the fine upholder of the law that he is, the professor goes right inside to call the police, leading to the following very calmly delivered but very emotional dialogue...

Leopold: "Well, here we have the two schools of thought, Professor, this time in action. That telephone to you means law and order, and to me…well, I've got to stop you using that telephone, with violence if necessary."
Professor Lightcap: "Yes, I see. That’s bad. I have a very warm feeling for you Joseph, but I must use this telephone."
Leopold: "And if you do, Professor, and I’m as fond of you as a brother, I’ll be compelled to knock you down."

Can you feel then tension between these two great friends? See the tension below...



Anyways, of course the Professor uses the telephone, Leopold knocks him out, and all kinds of new craziness ensues, including Miss Shelley's confusion over which man to pick.

Bonus: The professor and Miss Shelley arrive home with their borscht to find Leopold cooking, wearing a lovely women's apron with a giant bow over the butt. Apparently Cary Grant also thinks this scene is a great bonus, because we get to watch him check out his own butt.

Three stars, I think, and I'm sure I will watch it again. And not just because I own it!