The Lady Eve (1941)

What makes it different from others?

The greatest movie ever!

The greatest movie ever made..!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda in what is considered one of the best comedy "farces" of all time. It creeps up on the viewer slowly after Jean Harrington (Barbara) trips Charlie Pike (Fonda) in the grand dinning room of a cruise ship, just to get his attention. She is a card shark and intends to take him for every penny he is worth, but Jean falls head-over-heels in love with him. Her dad, the Colonel, (Charles Coburn) cheats Charlie out of $32,000 with a check he never cashes. Charlie is the heir to the family brewing fortune and prefers to capture snakes in the Amazon, so he brings a small one on shipboard. Jean breaks her shoe (on purpose) and lures him back to her stateroom, and thus the romance begins begins. A colorful cast includes gravel-voiced Eugene Paulette as "Charlie's dad" and William Frawley as "Muggsy", a family "retainer". In the last 40 minutes of the film, Director Sturges pulls out all the stops as Charlie is plagued by a barrage of pratfalls and stains several dinner jackets, the best one being the "gravy and prime rib spill". Jean passes herself off as "Lady Eve Sidwich" and Charlie is captivated once again, this time into marriage. Impossible, one would think, with fake credentials, but go with it. On their honeymoon trip on the train, she invents a "casting call" of "dozens" of willing Englishmen, starting at age 16, that she has amorous adventures with. Charlie leaves the train in anger and disgust. Jean is unable to go through with the final deception of a lucrative divorce settlement, much to the disapproval of her father. She meets him again in the same shipboard scenario. This time, when she trips him, he chases her back to her stateroom post-haste. "I'm married" he confesses. "So am I" she replies. Everyone failed to realize that Jean and Eve were the exact same person, as her fake British accent starts to slip toward the end of the film. Only Muggsy gets it right: "It's the same dame". Of course she is!

... 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.

Usually, when films have a male protagonist, they're strong and seemingly able at least a couple girls, if not one. In this case, Pike is extremely shy and awkward around women, which I found to be adorable. Jean, the other protagonist is a very strong woman in my eyes. She knows the con game like it's nobody's business, and she could be a little ruthless. But then while trying to con Pike, the plan backfires and she falls in love with him. Jean wasn't portrayed as a bad guy character, rather, she was a good woman with a good heart, and I liked how she went to show Pike that good girls aren't always good girls (shown with her Eve persona), and that bad girls aren't usually bad. The ending had me shocked, because Pike never knows that Jean was actually his wife Eve. It was hilarious, honestly. You'd think he'd find out that they were both the same person. but apparently not. Another thing I enjoyed was the symbolism through the snake and apple. Pike holds a huge love for his snakes, and they can be quite the charmer. I find that Jean was Pike's more human snake, seducing him into a romantic world, though she hurts him plenty with her fangs. That's the kind of girl I like, but again, I never saw Jean as a bad person. She's a well done character, and it makes me love the movie more for it.

This is a tale of love and trickery. About coning and redemption . a man who studies snakes on the amazon fall for a beautiful woman on ship back home. She is a hustler who targets him. but even she cannot help who she falls in love with. love is a funny thing it can change people some times for good other times no so much . But in this case it was for good. They bonded instantly as couples do in these old films. Its kind of corny yet charming because thats how things were back then . I was a simpler time.I always like the stereotypical old movie dynamic a guy a love interest something happens that makes the couple break up. There is a break up period and at the end of the film they find their way back to each other . Its Not all realistic but hey its the movies thats why people pay money to go and see them for a little break from reality . This film gives that to the audience.