142. The Lady Eve (1941)

Directed By Preston Sturges

Synopsis

A girl and her father are hustling on a cruise ship, she falls in love with the mark. Hilarity ensues.

Review

This is the first Sturges film on the list, but it is a promising one... there are more to come. The Lady Eve is a smart and funny comedy which manages to bypass a lot of the Production Code censorship with its witty banter. The jokes are fast and plenty, from allusions to male genitalia and arousal to a faked female orgasm, surely a first in mainstream cinema history.

The performances are as good as you would expect from Stanwick and Fonda, meaning superb and the plot twists and turns never getting you bored for the perfect total of 90 minutes. You wouldn't really imagine Fonda doing a comical part of a bumbling scientist almost a la Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, but he does pull it off, a long way from what he would do in Once Upon a Time In The West.

Hollywood comedies of the late 30's and early 40's are delightful, this type of romantic comedy was probably never bettered or equalled in any other era until the sole standing decent comedy of When Harry Met Sally decades later. Sturges is making a romantic comedy which is actually daring, and for that I tip my hat to him, it is not the best of them, but it is still damn entertaining. Get it on Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

The Lady Eve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

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