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The Lady Eve 1941 | Not Rated | Comedy, Romance | d. Preston Sturges Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda |
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| Barbara Stanwyck is brilliant as the irresistible member of a father/daughter team of card sharps who set out to fleece an unsuspecting ophiologist (snake specialist) while on an ocean liner from South America to New York, in the fast-paced comedy, The Lady Eve. Henry Fonda plays to perfection the bumbling and naïve scientist, who also happens to be the heir to an immense brewery fortune, while Stanwyck is both sexy and utterly convincing as the smart-alecky con girl whose heart shifts loyalties from the con game to the mark (and back again) at the structural center of the film Written and directed by a master of the screwball comedy, Preston Sturges, the movie is full of terrific lines (“They say a moonlit deck is a woman’s business office”) and masterful comic performances by Fonda, who manages to trip over nearly every piece of furniture in the film, and supporting players like Sturges favorite William Demarest and the inimitable Eric Blore (who also plays an earnest but inept manservant to great comic effect in Top Hat). The hilarious seduction scenes between the calculating Stanwyck and the clueless Fonda are often pointed to as examples of the expert timing and range of both actors, and viewers find themselves rooting equally for both characters in their battle of wits – and hearts. - Tom Schmid | ||