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 ****

... and probably my favorite A-list film. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda display such chemistry and play off of each other so perfectly, and I have to credit director Preston Sturges, because in another pairing of the two at about the same time, in "You Belong to Me", their chemistry - heck the whole movie - just landed with a thud.Fonda plays Charles, somebody born to wealth, and therefore with the leisure to do whatever he wants to do without thinking about the beauty of his situation. Charles chooses to study snakes. His no-nonsense self-made man father, perfectly played by Eugene Palette, holds his egg head son in only medium esteem, to quote another film, and has therefore assigned tough guy Muggsy (William Demarest) to be his body guard since he somewhat rightly perceives that Charles has no common sense or survival instincts. Charles is naïve, Jean (Stanwyck) is a con-woman wise in the ways of the world. She starts out to fleece the guy at cards when they find themselves on the same ship, but falls in love with him in spite of herself. When Charles finds out Jean is a con artist, he rejects her and she vows revenge, which she gets in the most imaginative way possible, all the while claiming that she doesn't love Charles anymore - but she does. She is a young woman wise to the "tells" in everybody else but blind to her own true feelings.Eric Blore, usually given to expressing himself with looks and one liners, is given a rather intricate story to tell at a crucial moment in the film and carries it off wonderfully. William Demarest has never been funnier, and poor Charles gets no end of grief from his father. Sure he's clumsy, but at one point he's blamed for having the main course dumped in his lap at a dinner party caused by two servants fighting over who is going to serve the main course.I won't give away any more, because the story is truly part of the delight here, but just let it be said that Jean teaches Charles that you can't tell what is in the present by looking at the wrapping paper, although the real moral of this film is that people in love believe what that want to believe. Highly recommended.

Barbara Stanwyck is one of the hottest ladies to hit the silver screen. On top of that, in this film she is a really interesting strong character unlike the paper thin ladies in distress seen in so many other films of the time. This is very much her movie, just as the title accurately suggests. Most other actors are good too. Charles Coburn plays a father and partner in crime to Barbara's character and he is charming and has chemistry with the girl.It is unfortunately Henry Fonda, the biggest of the names, who is kind of boring at best and annoying at worst. He is given a role of a naive doofus and he plays that role a little too well. calling into question the believability of his given profession as well any chemistry between him and the intelligent lady. It feels from some of the initial dialgoue that the original plan may have been for him to appear as a smart bookworm who is simply awkward with women, but instead he is just dumb. This is not really a comedy where being dumb is more forgivable so this is just not a very interesting character to put in the lead role.And this flaw is one of the problems with the story. It starts strong, but fizzles out, both in terms of interest and excitement. The plot becomes increasingly ridiculous, depending on the stupidity of James Fonda's character for its continuation. Then, towards the end of the film, the two main characters argue (which is in itself a cliché) and the point of contention between them is based on a cultural norm for women that no longer exists, and in fact, was already not realistic at the time this movie was made.The dialogue can be quite witty. You have to be fast enough to catch the good parts. However, eventually it gets romantic or sentimental and that is when the movie becomes a cheap romance novel with lines like "You believe me, don't you" spoken from behind sad puppy eyes.The cinematography is OK, but there is nothing inventive or of particular interest. It is a surprisingly sexual film for a 40's film with a good amount of skin from the main lady, though not enough to make it interesting that way.The makers do something interesting with the music in the later part of the movie to incorporate it into the film, but at all other times it is the usual sappy 40s romantic tunes.Lady Eve is all about its main female character. To a lesser degree it is about the funny supporting characters. However, the story disappoints and the main male character is a drag.

The first half of The Lady Eve is one of my new favourite things. Film noir mixed with screwball romance, it blends them both magnificently, utilising Barbara Stanwyck's smooth femme fatale and Henry Fonda's clear lack of comfort zone in any of this. Taking place over the course of a boat trip, the dialogue is sharp and witty, lying through their teeth but grounding it in compelling and whole-heartedly engaging truth. It has a feel that Preston Sturges had a very inspired weekend and wrote this on a productive bender and that kind of thing rubs off on you in the best way. It's a truly wonderful 50 minutes or so. Unfortunately, the plot thickens and life gets complicated after the boat. The film keeps its wit but gets very messy. It becomes difficult to keep track of what's going on, what the motive is and why the characters can't plainly see the problem. An overuse of Fonda falling down proves that the second half just isn't on the same level as the first. However, it doesn't drag the film down too far for me, it only drags it off a potential spot on my all-time favourites list.8/10