This weekend was one of necessity: catching a one-time screening of Ginger Rogers in Vivacious Lady, fulfilling my civic duty by seeing the harrowing documentary The Cove, and revisiting some well-loved Miyazaki films in preparation for reviews.

Thursday, August 6 @ The Heights – Vivacious Lady (1938)

The transition from 1928 to 1938 in film history is pretty huge. In 1928 the new and dubious technology of sync sound was taking the world by storm. Some worried that the introduction of sound would shift film away from its more visual aesthetics to hollow dialog and poor acting. (Okay, maybe I’m projecting and embellishing a little bit, but what would those sound naysayers think of Hollywood now?) Needless to say, by 1938 silent films were a thing of the past in Hollywood.

This ten-year span was put into context when The Heights screened the silent film The Patsy, made in 1928, and one week later screened George Stevens’ 1938 film Vivacious Lady. Perhaps not meant to be representative of their respective years, The Patsy and Vivacious Lady nonetheless set up an interesting contrast where I found myself siding against the talkies.

Vivacious Lady was the second film in The Heights five part series of Ginger Rogers at RKO. Film preservationist and historian Bob DeFlores was on hand to introduce the film and present the audience with a rare film clip of Ginger Rogers on the Bob Hope Buick Show in 1959. The clip, a short song and dance, was an example of Rogers’ natural charm and stunning beauty. I sadly missed the first in the series, The Gay Divorcee with Fred Astaire, which screened last month. Rogers’ capable co-star for Vivacious Lady was a very young Jimmy Stewart before his face bore creases and before his chin receded into his thin neck. DeFlores mentioned in his introduction that Stewart nearly had to give up the part due to the fact that he got ill shortly after shooting had started. A plan to replace Stewart with Douglas Fairbanks (that would have been weird) was shelved, and the producers decided to put the production on hold until Stewart could return.

Rogers plays Francey, a New York City nightclub singer who gets swept off her feet by the square but charming small town professor, Peter Morgan (Stewart.) A quick marriage means that the nervous nelly professor must take his new blond bombshell wife home and explain to his stuffy parents (and prospective fiancé) that they have a daughter-in-law. Easier said than done, as the overbearing father clearly disapproves of everything outside of his control.

Vivacious Lady certainly has its moments, and most of them are Ginger Rogers’ including a hilarious catfight. Her sauciness as Francey is irresistible and gets almost every laugh in the film, which makes her cajoling so hard to take (not to mention Peter’s browbeaten inability to stand up for himself and his new wife.) Her sass seems to melt away at any given moment, turning her into a predictable and much less compelling character. My inability to deal with some of the incongruities from a film made over 70 years ago may be the source of some of my qualms with the film, but I also blame the writers. Jimmy Stewart and Ginger Rogers are always a pleasure to watch, but Vivacious Lady is far from their best films.

Which brings me back to those skeptics of sound, sort of. It may be comparing apples to oranges, but Marion Davies’ performance in The Patsy is, in my opinion, heads and shoulders above Ginger Rogers’ not because of acting ability but because of a weak script: sullied by sound and dialog! Vivacious Lady is unavailable through traditional means of DVD, so your golden opportunity to agree or disagree with me was Thursday at The Heights. The next film in the series will be Top Hat on September 24 at 7:30pm. Word on the street is you should buy your tickets in advance!

Friday, August 7 @ Edina Cinema – The Cove (2009)

In future posts I will try to refrain from repeating myself, but at this early juncture I can not help but vent on how much I hate driving or riding out to the Edina Cinema. I love the theater and its laidback but bustling atmosphere, I just wish it were closer or easier to get to. (I am spoiled by being able to bike almost anywhere I want to go, and I hate driving.)

With that in mind, going to Edina was the first proverbial stick in the eye; going to watch a documentary about the slaughter of dolphins is the second. Why did I do it? Because I knew that The Cove is one of those films that is important to see. As much as I try to bury my head in films and ignore the mess in the world, sometimes it is unavoidable. I knew what I was in for, and on the drive out to Edina I was already feeling sick about the human race and my complicit involvement.

The Cove is an investigative documentary on the dolphin industry in Taiji, Japan. Every September through March, fishermen round up dolphins on their normal migratory route into a protected cove to be sold as the next Flipper at a seaworld-like place near you. The dolphins that are not selected are shuttled to a secluded cove and killed for their meat. The killing, done on a daily basis, is a highly protected secret that law enforcement and fishermen alike go to intimidating extremes to protect.

There are two points to this issue. The first is the inhumanity of what is being done to these creatures. Dolphins are highly intelligent creatures that are just about as docile and gentle an animal you are going to find. The second is the extremely high levels of mercury in dolphin meat (more than 500 times what is considered safe to eat.) The reduction in highly coveted whale meat in Japan has resulted in dolphin meat being mislabeled as whale meat, and in a push to make dolphin meat on its own more acceptable, even promoting the meat for schools.

Dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry leads the fight to stop the slaughter of these animals. O’Barry was the famed trainer for Flipper and gives heart-wrenching testimonial to his personal awaking to the cruelty of dolphin captivity. That these ocean dwelling creatures, used to traveling 40 miles a day, would get depressed in an enclosed tank is something of a no-brainer, but you hardly think about it when you are sitting there watching them ‘smile’ and do tricks. O’Barry is a wanted man in Taiji, with everyone waiting for him to do something wrong so they can arrest him and throw him out of the country forever.

Filming the activities in the cove using proper channels proved to be a dead end for the film team. That is when the documentary turns into a covert operation to uncover and show the world what is happening behind the secretive cliffs.

The Cove is an amazing documentary that is as well made, as it is informative. The eventual footage is hard to watch but invaluable to the thrust of the film. Show me an animal being tortured or killed in an inhumane manner, and I not only see what is in front of me but also the downward spiral of mankind. Treading a little bit lighter, and treating animals and other human beings with dignity is something I wish we could all get on the same page about. Putting aside egos and national pride is a tall order on an international scale, and this issue is no different.

If I have a soapbox left to stand on and you haven’t hit the ‘back’ button on your browser, I would encourage everyone to see this film. And if watching dolphins swim for their lives in a bloody pool is not something you can do, I certainly understand. Either way, please consider putting your name on the petition to have this stopped. They have a goal of 30,000 signatures: I was number 15,209 and just one day later they were up to 16,848!

Saturday, August 8 @ home with Miyazaki

The alternating rain and steam were one deterrent from venturing out, but I also wasn’t up for traipsing though the Uptown Art Fair to see In the Loop. In the Loop will have to wait again.

Instead I decided to be a homebody. I’m slated to do some reviews of older Hayao Miyazaki films in celebration of the upcoming stateside release of Ponyo, so I spent the day re-watching The Castle of Cagliostro, My Neighbor Totoro and Porco Rosso. Just to give you an idea of how I feel about Miyazaki, Totoro usually ends up on my top ten list of favorite movies ever. Completely devoid of manipulative narrative devices, Totoro celebrates the simplicity of innocence and magic.

Miyazaki’s new film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (shortened to Ponyo for the US) is getting a major release on August 14. The English dub looks to be top notch with a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cloris Leachman, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, and Betty White. The two leads are voiced by Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas, which I don’t have a problem with per se, but the new theme song sung by the duo is a whole other matter entirely. I look forward to seeing this in the theater, but I also look forward to buying the import DVD sans Noah and Frankie.

Tags: documentary, Ginger Rogers, Hayao Miyazaki, Jimmy Stewart, Landmark Edina Cinema, repertory screening, The Heights, The Heights Theatre

This post was written by Kathie Smith, Monday, August 10th, 2009 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Diversionary Tactics, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.