| |
The Lady Eve is a screwball comedy film about a mismatched couple who meet on a luxury liner, written by Preston Sturges based on a story by Monckton Hoffe, and directed by Sturges, his third directorial effort, after The Great McGinty and Christmas in July. The film stars Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck and features Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest and Eric Blore.
In , The Lady Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) is a beautiful con artist.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'The Lady Eve' Start a new discussion about 'The Lady Eve' Answer questions from other users |
Quotations
Barbara Stanwyck has Henry Fonda Bewitched and Bewildered
When you deal a fast shuffle... Love is in the cards.
You ought to put handles on that skull. Maybe you could grow geraniums in it.
about 'Lady Eve' That's the same dame. She looks the same, she walks the same, and she's tossing you just like she done the last time.
about Charles I need him like the axe needs the turkey.
to Charles, about the Harringtons They might know a couple of tricks you ain't seen yet.
Encyclopedia
The Lady Eve is a screwball comedy film about a mismatched couple who meet on a luxury liner, written by Preston Sturges based on a story by Monckton Hoffe, and directed by Sturges, his third directorial effort, after The Great McGinty and Christmas in July. The film stars Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck and features Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest and Eric Blore.
In , The Lady Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) is a beautiful con artist. Along with her equally larcenous father, "Colonel" Harrington (Charles Coburn) and his partner Gerald (Melville Cooper), she is out to fleece rich, naive Charles Pike (Henry Fonda), the heir to the Pike Ale fortune ("The Ale That Won for Yale"). Pike is a woman-shy snake expert just returning from a year-long expedition up the Amazon.
But even the best laid plans can go astray. First, Jean falls hard for Pike and shields him from her card sharp father. Then, when Pike's suspicious minder/valet Muggsy (William Demarest) discovers the truth about her and her father, Pike dumps her. Furious at being scorned, she re-enters his life masquerading as the posh "Lady Eve Sidwich", niece of Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith (Eric Blore), another con man who's been swindling the rich folk of Connecticut. Jean is determined to torment Pike mercilessly – as she explains, "I've got some unfinished business with him — I need him like the axe needs the turkey" – and it doesn't hurt that Pike's wealthy businessman father (Eugene Pallette) is impressed by English nobility and eager to promote a marriage between his son and her ladyship. Soon her hapless victim is so confused and bothered he doesn't know which way is up, but, in the end, after all the twists and turns, deceptions and lies, true love wins out.
Cast
Cast notes:
- Aside from William Demarest, members of Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors who appear in The Lady Eve include Al Bridge, Jimmy Conlin, Robert Dudley, Robert Greig, Arthur Hoyt, George Melford, Torben Meyer, Frank Moran, Victor Potel, Harry Rosenthal, Julius Tannen and Robert Warwick.
- This was the fifth of ten films written by Preston Sturges that William Demarest appeared in (see note).
Analysis
The clearest theme, and easiest to pick out very early in the film is gender inversion. Jean Harrington is clearly in control of the situation for the majority of the film, until her feelings get in the way of her previous, dubious intentions. Until that moment of crystallizing realization that she loved him, there was little sense of the struggle between equals that typifies most romantic comedies.
The unique blend of slapstick and satire allows this film to speak a message while still being uproariously funny. We see the “fall of man” implied by the title of the film in many ways. First is that literal, that being Pike continuously falling down in various situations and his “fall from innocence” as he is sucked into the deceptive plots laid out by Jean.
Sturges also uses deceptiveness in appearance profusely throughout the film. Things as small as the distinction, or lack thereof, between beer and ale to the various disguises of Jean Harrington add depth to the plotline. Even most of the characters have two names (Charles=Hopsie, Jean=Eugenia/Eve Sidwich). This lack of recognition sets the stage for the craziness of the storyline, adding yet another layer of complexity to the film.
Sturges repeatedly suggests that the “lowliest boob could rise to the top with the right degree of luck, bluff and fraud”. One can easily see how this could have been the case with Jean, as she had ample opportunity to succeed in her plans and get away with both her pocketbook full and her dignity intact. However, we see the romantic side of life burst in and how the best laid plans can end up much differently than one previously planned. Love, in the end, will do what it will and we are all just players in an often confusing, but inevitably wonderful game.
Awards and honors
Monckton Hoffe, who wrote the original story for The Lady Eve, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story. In that same year, the National Board of Review nominated the film for "Best Picture", and the New York Times named it as the best film of the year in their "10 Best Films of 1941" list.
In 1994, The Lady Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
American Film Institute recognition
Remake
In 1956, the plot of The Lady Eve was recycled for the movie The Birds and the Bees, starring George Gobel, Mitzi Gaynor and David Niven. Preston Sturges received a co-writer credit for the film, although he did not actually participate in the project.
See also
Bibliography
- Coursodon, Jean-Pierre, American Directors: Volume I, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983
- Nochimson, Martha, “The Lady Eve and Sullivan's Travels”, Cineaste, Summer 2002, Vol. 27, Issue 3
- Rowe, Kathleen, The Unruly Woman, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995
- Sarris, Andrew, The American Cinema, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1968
External links
|
