Das große Spiel

In 1941, a year after Fonda made "Grapes of Wrath" for Twentieth Century Fox', the studio loaned him out to Paramount Pictures for Preston Sturges' hugely successful "Lady Eve." That film gave Fonda a rare chance to play comedy, and he is particularly believable and appealing as the naive millionaire. Fox's head of production, Daryl Zanuck, saw the tremendous box-office potential in casting his dramatic star in similar roles, and a year later produced this pleasant ripoff of Sturges' premise: what would happen if a con-artist (in "Eve" Stanwyck, in this film Gene Tierney) fell for the man she'd conned. Tierney is as always very lovely and considerably less wooden than normal in the part of the reformed crook, but it is Fonda with his All-American Boy good looks who steals the show. Rouben Mamoulian, usually not associated with this sort of fluff, does an excellent job of directing.

Laird Cregar is always an imposing pleasure on the screen, a marvellous actor with great diction and indomitable authority, he always somehow seems to fill up the entire screen by his mere presence. Here he is the ringleader of a circle of sophisticated swindlers, fooling anything out of anyone. Gene Tierney in one of her early roles as an ordinary shop-girl behind the counter in a fashion establishment, is observed for her beauty by these adventurers and taken up in their circle as an attractive bait and decoy, as they carry on and happen to Henry Fonda, very unusual in comedy but managing it very well, just repeating his performance in "The Lady Eve", and this film owes very much to Preston Sturges' formidable knack of comedy - Barbara Stanwyck is just substituted by Gene Tierney, but she is a poor girl, and she doesn't really fool Henry Fonda on purpose - she just follows the fake team. There are many glorious instances of comedy here, very original for Mamoulian, but not enough to harvest a full score, as the plot doesn't quite hold water. It is great entertainment of the highest class, and Mamoulian probably made it for a change to try something different from his heavy masterpieces. As a comedy it sparkles though, the dialog is terrific throughout, and like all Mamoulian's films, this is another one to never tire of.

Having never heard of this movie before, I found it to be a pleasant surprise when I found it on youtube. From reading the other reviews, it appears I'm in the minority, but I can't help it. In most cases, a film either has me after a few minutes, or it doesn't. From the start, I found Gene Tierney to be enchanting and, as the plot unfolded, I thought, "Ooh, this going to be fun.", and it was. People have compared this to "The Lady Eve", but that has a plot even more preposterous. I mean, come one, only someone with brain damage wouldn't know Eve and Jean are the same person. So, John thinking he had discovered a method for gambling doesn't seem that far-fetched. Though not one of the best film comedies of all time, it was still enjoyable.

"Rings on Her Fingers" is a thoroughly charming picture that takes a kaleidoscope of elements from films of the era -- the shop-girl Cinderella, bathing suit poses on the beach, the rich man's yacht, the poolside party, mistaken identity, love on the breadline, evasion in a crowded terminus, the casino, the gangster -- and mixes them all up in a hectic, hilarious, but instinctively good-natured plot. As a romance, it's very funny without ever needing to resort to the anarchic destruction of many 'screwball' affairs; as a comedy, it laughs at its characters with loving affection rather than glee and discomfiture.

In the best of farces, absurd events unfold with a seemingly inevitable logic. It must be admitted that in this picture, the plot occasionally skates past short-term expedients that just have to be taken for granted -- but the ensuing situations are milked to such good effect that it's easy to turn a blind eye. The film is rich in set-pieces both verbal and visual, with a host of lively minor characters to accompany the note-perfect performances of the principals.

Laird Cregar excels as usual in the role of the resonant, urbane Warren (performing with impressive agility in his swimming-pool scene), while Spring Byington is here the best I have seen her, the actress submerging her trademark mannerisms in an actual character. Gene Tierney is sweet, smart, funny and distinctly shapely as the girl who pulls off the perfect con and then learns what she has really done. Henry Fonda -- for my money, both more credible and more sympathetic here than in "The Lady Eve" -- plays a mathematical dreamer with a passion for sailing and the sea, while some eye-catching yachts of the era star in the background, apparently shot on location!

The film starts off light and gradually gains in intensity and emotional weight as it goes along, with frequent upwellings of laughter to season some very genuine feeling. The two lovers are charming together, from a very Freudian first scene (in which the camera settles on Linda's trim contours as a somewhat dislocated John tries to describe the lines of his yacht) to the final escape, Perhaps the highlight is the taxicab sequence in which our hero, intoxicated with excitement, is convinced he has devised a 'system' to beat the roulette wheel, while Linda and the audience, in on the secret, find him both hilarious and adorable at the same time.

Like all good comedies, "Rings on Her Fingers" laughs at our human frailties, but it does so with a gentle touch. It shares with "Some Like It Hot" an essential innocence and sweetness at the root of its effervescent humour, and scarcely sets a foot wrong in the process. I enjoyed this little-known, little-rated picture very much indeed.

I stumbled across this movie on YouTube while trying to find something quick to watch that required little head thinking and I'm glad I did. It's a harmless, sometimes sweet, romantic comedy-crime story with a very good cast.

Two swindlers take Susan/Linda (Tierney), a girdle shop assistant who dreams of a life of glitz and glamour, under their wing and employ her for their money-grabbing schemes. Things get complicated when Susan/Linda falls for the small-time accountant John (Fonda) they are trying to con who parts with his life savings to impress her.

Fonda and Tierney's chemistry save this movie from becoming another unimaginative and dull comedy that relies on its star billing for top box office draws. Susan/Linda transforms herself from Brooklyn shop assistant to high society heiress with ease - cementing herself as the Grace Kelly of the 1940s. It is hard to believe she is only 21 years old in this movie. While he's no Cary Grant in the romantic comedy arena, Fonda plays the hapless and financially unsuccessful John perfectly who, like any man would, falls for Tierney in a heartbeat.

Although not a hit in its day and practically forgotten by today's audiences, "Rings on Her Fingers" is worth a watch for Fonda and Tierney's early comedic performances alone. They work well with the script and story they are dealt with.