Die Falschspielerin

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 ****

As a lifelong Preston Sturges fan, I find the problem with submitting 'user comments' on his films to be twofold. The first is where to begin, the second how to stop. A third problem (growing out of the first two) manifests itself immediately upon watching a flawless jewel like THE LADY EVE: why even bother to praise it? No matter how accurate or elegant a rave you write, they'd still be merely words, and words can't do Sturges justice...not after hearing and seeing his own words spinning like a thousand plates over the 90-odd minutes it takes for this film to utterly captivate you. Unlike many black-and-white products of the studio era, which generate condescension or apathy among the Gen X'ers of today (when do we get to Gen Z - or are we there already?), the Sturges cult grows with every passing year, as younger fans fall under his spell, drawn initially to his work for the still-startling energy of the stream of raspberries he blew at the Production Code. (In this sense, EVE marks a high point; it's all about sexual gamesmanship, and its tone is both matter-of-fact and dizzyingly playful at the same time.) But hopefully, they're coming for the sizzle and staying for the steak. Like all Sturges' Paramount films, EVE is an embarrassment of riches - a boudoir farce, a slapstick clinic, a cynical dialogue comedy AND a love story of great, soulful heart. It's especially recommended to anyone beset by misery and tribulation as a guaranteed restorative and cure-all. When a movie from any era can so completely take you out of yourself and lift the blackest of clouds without resorting to any cheapjack plot-gimmicks or trite manipulation of an audience's emotions, all you can do is be grateful. Though the unfailingly superb Sturges Players are on hand, in fine form (including of course his human rabbit's foot, Wm Demarest) EVE features a number of actors making their first and only appearances in a Sturges-directed film: Stanwyck, Fonda, Eric Blore, Melville Cooper and perennial Fonda cohort Eugene Pallette. All of them take to the material like catnip, making one long for an alternate reality in which Preston Sturges could have remained unmolested at Paramount for 20 years and a dozen more films than he actually made, not only to see this cast reunited, but to see what might have resulted from any number of quality actors being exposed to the hothouse atmosphere of his screenplays. That it never worked out that way is one more reason to treasure THE LADY EVE.

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

Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck light up the delightful Preston Sturges comedy, "The Lady Eve."

Stanwyck plays a dual role as a con artist who falls for a mark, Henry Fonda, on board a ship and then, angry with his rejection of her, reappears in his life later as a member of the British upper class - you got it, the Lady Eve.

Fonda is hilarious as a clueless child of privilege. Always the most subtle, internalized of actors, his facial expressions are priceless, as is his slapstick.

The funniest scene takes place on a train when, as the train races along the tracks, Eve recounts her various love affairs while Fonda becomes more and more flummoxed.

Betty Grable got a lot of publicity for her legs, but Stanwyck's were the best, shown to great advantage here, as is the rest of her gorgeous figure. She's fantastic in this and has great chemistry with Fonda.

Stanwyck always creates a whole character, and she does here as well (in fact, two of them) as a woman who is smart, independent, vulnerable in love, and conniving when angry.

A great comedy, not to be missed.

I don't know how I missed seeing this until now, but tonight I watched THE LADY EVE unfurl on TCM and took notice of how great the chemistry was between BARBARA STANWYCK and HENRY FONDA. And even more so, how fantastic their ability with screwball comedy had to be in order to make their characters as believable as they are.

Fonda, especially, impressed me with his honestly naive interpretation of a man without guile. He seemed totally hoodwinked by Stanwyck's con artist, even in those relentless close-ups that captured every expression on his Honest Abe face. Stanwyck, of course, had a role tailored to her abilities and was at the top of her form as an actress.

I would have liked a better role for Melville Cooper who is somewhat wasted in his rather thankless supporting role but Charles Coburn, William Demarest and Eric Blore have no such trouble with full-bodied character parts.

Sturgess obviously is a master of long takes--and proves it again in his seduction scene where Stanwyck toys with Fonda's hair as she drapes herself across him, a spider spinning her web. Her best moment is the scene in the dining room where she uses her make-up mirror to make a running commentary on all the women who are ogling the rich catch (Fonda) while he becomes aware of the female attention. Although Fonda's pratfalls are painfully real, Sturges lets them occur a little too frequently. Demarest too has his share of falls--as he did in that other Sturges masterpiece, THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK.

Fonda's performance ranks with his mild professor in THE MALE ANIMAL. As for Stanwyck, her professionalism has never been more solid. She was nominated in 1941 for Best Actress in BALL OF FIRE but she is equally impressive in her dual role assignment here.