I will just come out and say it. My name is La Femme and I hate chick flicks. As a woman I may be betraying my sisters who love them but I must stand with my fellow cinephiles against the treacly formula. Every year, studios release dozens of terrible romantic comedies with the exact same plot, give or take a couple details. A couple meets cute, falls in love, has some kind of misunderstanding but by the end are reunited with a fantastic kiss. Fade to black. Of course, there have been good romantic comedies in the last thirty years (Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally), there have been good cult romantic comedies (Love and Sex(!), Going the Distance), and there have been romantic comedies that are so bad, they are good (Along Came Polly, that one is for K). We can blame the terrible, predictable formula on the classic screwball comedies of the 1930's and 1940's. Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve essentially follows the classic romantic comedy plot (meet cute, love, break up, reunite!) but perfects the genre that romantic comedies of today have a lot to live up to in comedy, chemistry and even sex. The Lady Eve may be a romantic comedy, but it is no chick flick.
As with most screwball comedies, the plot of The Lady Eve is convoluted, bizarre, and totally delightful. Jean (Barbara Stanwyck) is a con artist who, with her father's assistance, fleeces rich men through a lethal cocktail of card games, slight-of-hand, and sex appeal. While returning to the U.S. on a luxurious ocean liner, they meet the perfect victim: Charles "Hopsy" Pike (Henry Fonda) is the heir to a beer fortune (or maybe it is ale), who couldn't be less interested in beer (or ale, for that matter). His true love is snakes, which he has been studying in the Amazon for the preceding years. While Jean and her father think they have found the perfect target in the naive, sheltered Hopsy, there is something about him that Jean finds irresistible (and Fonda is adorable and strangely sexy as the paradoxically intelligent but stupid Hopsy), and she falls for him. Just as Jean is ready to give up her life of crime, her true identity as a con artist is revealed, leading Hopsy to unceremoniously dump her. Subsequently, Hopsy spends the rest of the film learning about the true meaning of the phrase "a woman scorned." The action recommences at Hopsy's family estate in Connecticut, where Jean returns as The Lady Eve, vowing revenge against Charles.
Most of the reason I decided to recommend this movie was to gush over Stanwyck. Barbara Stanwyck, K says, maybe the greatest screen actor ever. And I might agree with him. In this movie she is powerful, vulnerable, sexy, confident, witty, sweet, and scathing. When she is on screen, it is as though there is nothing else on screen. In The Lady Eve, Barbara Stanwyck is the epitome of thespian bravery - she's not afraid to be a raging bitch, nor is she afraid to be a lovesick girl; that dichotomy between temptress and innocence is a quality that I find very appealing. She seems so open and so raw in her emotion that you are completely with Jean in every step that she takes against poor Hopsy. Take a look at her introductory scene as she scopes out her competition for Hopsy's attention, and I think you will see exactly what I mean.
On this viewing, something different struck me that I didn't notice as much the first time. It wasn't that the movie was still funny and translates perfectly to modern sensibilities. Don't get me wrong, The Lady Eve is funny, uproarious even. It moves so quickly that is almost hard to keep up with. And it wasn't the script by Preston Sturges that may be one of the most perfect ever written (with a contender for my favorite last lines ever in a movie). It wasn't the chemistry between Stanwyck and Fonda, which is electric and so integral to a successful romantic comedy. Nor was it the hilarious supporting cast, including Charles Coburn, William Demarest and my favorite, Eugene Pallette, as Mr. Pike. It was how sexy the movie is. The first seduction scene between them involves Fonda putting on Stanwyck's shoe and it is a lot sexier than many scenes of undressing in movies today. There is also the scene I embedded at the beginning of this review in which Stanwyck and Fonda are laying down next to each other in a chair and Stanwyck tousles Fonda's hair. Sounds tame, I know, but look at Fonda's face - that, right there, is sex. The Lady Eve explores the art of seduction, from words, to clothes, to romantic gestures but shows how a good tousle closes the deal.
Julie
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