Die Falschspielerin

This is an interesting combination of talents and material that works very well, thanks most of all to Preston Sturges's ability to create a distinctive feel to his pictures. "The Lady Eve" has many of the elements familiar to screwball comedy, and yet it is something a little different, a little more than the oddball characters and comical plot developments.

Barbara Stanwyck has quite an interesting role that allows her at times to assume several different personas. She shows good versatility, and effectively brings out the different sides of her character's nature. Henry Fonda works better than you would expect in such a comic picture. He is wisely used as a straight man most of the time, and even his occasional stiffness actually fits the role.

Much of the supporting cast gets only limited opportunities, but they are generally good also, especially Charles Coburn, who is perfectly cast as Stanwyck's shifty father.

There are many amusing moments, yet often with a current of humanity underneath. Sturges and the cast keep the laughs coming while also making sure that you care about the characters.

A second viewing of this after many years has confirmed it as truly one of the great comedies. I don't think Sturges was ever better (although I haven't seen all his films), and certainly he was never blessed with a better star pairing than Fonda and Stanwyck, plus his usual wonderful array of character comedians in the supporting roles. A double bill of Eve with "Hail the Conquering Hero" reveals that, while both still have their charms, Eve can still have a theatre rocking with laughter, while Hero leaves them a bit cold with its descent into Capra-cornish patriotism and mother love.

The Lady Eve has one of my favourite performances ever from Henry Fonda, showing that his grave sincerity could serve screwball comedy equally as well as Fordian moral uplift. He takes some of the funniest deadpan pratfalls this side of Buster Keaton.

And of course Stanwyck is a delight ... and Charles Coburn ... and Eugene Pallette ... and William Demarest ... and ... and ... ssshhh ... Eric Blore.

If you've never seen it, give yourself a treat

On the surface of it, THE LADY EVE is a delightfully shallow evening's entertainment. It's a clever little film, filled with great dialogue ("Don't be vulgar, Jean. Let us be crooked, but never common.") and eccentric characters, from the leading lady Jean (a marvellous Barbara Stanwyck) and her much-beleaguered main man Charlie Pike (Henry Fonda) down to the other con artists that make up Jean's circle, including her dad Harry (Charles Coburn), sidekick Gerald (Melville Cooper) and Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith (Eric Blore)... or just Pearlie for short. Charlie is heir to the Pike Ale fortune, and while on a cruise home from South America, Harrington father and daughter decide to take the hapless lad to the metaphorical drycleaners. What neither of them gambles on is a romance that was always in the cards for Jean and Charlie. But just as Jean is about to go 'straight' for Charlie, he discovers that his girlfriend is part of a con racket, and unceremoniously dumps her. Hurt and determined to get revenge for his cruel parting words, Jean initiates a farce as the Lady Eve Sidwich of the film's title and infiltrates Charlie's home and heart again. She quickly teaches him a lesson he'll never forget, just as she realises how much she really still loves Charlie.

Story-wise, then, it's no doubt that THE LADY EVE provides fine frothy entertainment. Pair that with the surreal touches added into the film by Preston Sturges (take for example the supposedly climactic scene in which Charlie repeats his words of love to Eve--Fonda never gets to play the scene straight, even though he has to maintain a stony face as his horse keeps butting into his speech... presumably to try to get him to stop talking!), and there's certainly plenty to keep one occupied as is. The film is, of course, a screwball comedy absolutely bent on throwing every possible obstacle it can into the path of its intended couple, coming up with more twists than you expect...

However, thanks largely to the brilliant writing and direction provided by Sturges, it actually also plays very close and very insightfully to the theme of what Stanley Cavell calls 'remarriage comedy'. The idea behind this is that legal or religious marriages, the 'first' marriages of the couple concerned in such comedies, are actually sham marriages. It isn't saying 'I do' or signing a piece of paper that makes a marriage a marriage; it's the behaviour of the couple, their own endorsement, that makes it a true marriage. This theme is reflected in, for example, THE AWFUL TRUTH, which sees Lucy and Jerry Warriner divorcing (their first, sham marriage didn't work out) but getting back together again for a true, albeit not yet legalised, union. The same theme pervades THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Preston Sturges very skilfully and effectively--but subtly!--brings this theme to his film as well. Eve and Charlie are married, but it is only when Charlie asks Jean for forgiveness and vice versa is it possible for the fact that they are married (to each other, as poor Charlie does not know!) to become significant and actually positively affirmed.

This isn't the only interesting point the film makes while appearing to be little more than a fluffy piece of entertainment--when Charlie breaks Jean's heart, she tells him, "The best [girls] aren't as good as you think they are and the bad ones aren't as bad. Not nearly as bad." She sets out to prove this, both in her fabricated 'good-girl' persona as Eve (later revealed to have had many MANY suitors) and her real 'bad-girl' con-artist self Jean (who has a soft heart and a love for Charlie that proves to be one of her virtues). Practically everyone in the film has (at least) two names by which they're known: Jean/Eve, Charlie/Hopsie, Muggsy/Murgatroyd/Ambrose, Harry/Colonel Harrington, Pearlie/Sir Alfred and so on. This suggests, quite rightly, that people are complicated complex beings, and that appearances often have nothing to do with reality. It also brings the film's story to a head--Jean and Charlie can never be happy together until Charlie can accept Jean as she is, and this he presumably will have learnt through his short, disastrous 'marriage' to Eve.

Stanwyck and Fonda are really outstanding in this film. Stanwyck's job is to persuasively depict two characters, and then effect a blend of the two of them in the final minutes of the story, and she pulls off both the sassy, confident Jean and the elegant, British Eve perfectly. It's not hard to imagine Charlie falling hard for Jean, even with her hard-headed casing of the joint and her prospective competition (appropriately deemed second-rate) for his affections... a very memorable scene involving her make-up mirror and a narrative voice-over, the latter of which is used to great effect in the lead-up to the 'romantic scene and horse' bit which follows later in the film. Fonda has the apparently easier job of appearing mostly colourless and stodgy as he spends most of his screen time reacting to situations created by both Jean and Eve, but I contend that it must really take quite a lot of true acting ability to execute the pratfalls that he does without making Charlie such a wimp that you can't imagine Jean still wanting him at the very end. Though not quite as effective as Cary Grant, who has to do the same thing in the face of Katharine Hepburn's breathlessly effusive Susan Vance in BRINGING UP BABY, Fonda still brings a sweet charm to his role as the not-at-all-slick, often befuddled Charlie Pike. Add these two classy performances to that given by the able supporting cast, and THE LADY EVE is not just well-scripted and directed, but also very very well-acted indeed.

So, watch this film the first time just for fun--be charmed by the characters, by the dialogue, by the actors, by everything. Then watch it again to realise just how subtly and effectively THE LADY EVE actually makes several comments on marriage and on love. I highly recommend getting your hands on the Criterion Collection DVD, which has (aside from a tremendous photo gallery and interview with Peter Bogdanavich and other special features) a fantastic, thought-provoking commentary by film critic Marian Keane--it most certainly got *me* thinking!

Great film, great entertainment, great message!

The Lady Eve is one of the most memorable comedies of the golden age, and today it stands as a highly entertaining movie that has a lot of enjoyably dated comedy. Particularly hilarious are the scenes in which Stanwyck spills her life story to Fonda as they swoosh under the train tunnel, and the scenes in which the food trays keep spilling on Fonda. The performances are great, and though it seems more like Stanwyck falls for Fonda out of pity more than love, the two work well together. And Barbara Stanwyck in that black, bare-midriff dress is one of the most breath-takingly beautiful images ever to appear on the screen.

Fast-talking, quick-thinking, altogether delightful comedy from Preston Sturges, who also adapted the screenplay from Monckton Hoffe's original story. An elderly cardsharp and his equally crooked daughter, traveling in style by cruise ship from South America, zero in on their next victim--a handsome but somewhat unsteady ale-heir--but the daughter mixes business with pleasure and ends up falling for the lug. Barbara Stanwyck, with her crafty stare and sexy smirk, surprisingly doesn't run roughshod over articulate Henry Fonda, and they make a winning combination. Sturges' script blends grown-up jokes and conversation with pratfalls while never losing the filmmaker's graceful touch and innate sophistication. The results are amusingly frisky, prickly and unpredictable. *** from ****