Peak Barbara Stanwyck? Peak Henry Fonda? Peak Preston Sturges? All of that is in play with The Lady Eve, their 1941 collaboration about a con woman (Stanwyck’s Jean) who targets and then falls for an ale heir/snake researcher (Fonda’s Charles “Hopsie” Pike). The movie is written (by Sturges) brilliantly and performed by its leads perfectly. It’s possible every line Stanwyck has here is funny; frankly, I couldn’t keep up. But consider the physical comedy she brings to the part as well, as when she nudges Hopsie off a chair onto the floor, holds him there with her arms, begins mussing his hair, and purrs, “You’re very sweet. Don’t let me go.” He’s not going anywhere (and she’s not going to let him). Delightfully dazed, Fonda is sweet—and silly and sincere. I can’t think of a better guy I’d rather laugh at. The Lady Eve is stuffed with throwaway gags (the nosy horse that repeatedly interrupts Hopsie’s marriage proposal), but it also has an ingenious, circular narrative structure, moving from Jean and Hopsie’s meet-con turned meet-cute on a cruise ship (where Hopsie gets his hair mussed); to her disguised appearance as Lady Eve Sidwich at Hopsie’s Connecticut mansion (where a discombobulated Hopsie has a few run-ins with the furniture); to their honeymoon on a train (where “Lady Eve” confesses all of her previous paramours). Eventually we come full circle, back on a boat, where things are sewn up in a cinch. Lest I undersell Sturges’ talent as a director, it’s worth noting the dexterous blocking of the pratfalls, as well as the parallel cutting during the montage in which Lady Eve runs through the list of her other men. Each name is interrupted by a shot of the train plunging into a tunnel as the whistle screams; it’s comic editing at its best. The movie also features pitch-perfect supporting work from Charles Coburn as Jean’s gentleman, con-man father (“Let us be crooked but never common”); Eugene Pallette as Hopsie’s gruff, eye-rolling, beer-baron dad; and William Demarest as Hopsie’s suspicious bodyguard. He gets a final line that rivals the sendoff of Some Like It Hot, if you want another indication of the level The Lady Eve is working at.
(7/25/2022)
