Classic Romantic Comedies Vol. 5: The Lady Eve

Today's instalment in our series on classic romantic comedies comes to the film that easily wins out over all classic Hollywood films as my absolute favourite of all time.  It features my favorite first lady of Hollywood, Barbara Stanwyck, co-stars her The Mad Miss Manton leading man Henry Fonda, and is directed by a man whose name is right up with Lubitch's as one of the great comedy writer/directors of the golden age of Hollywood, Mr. Preston Sturges.  Preston Sturges directed several comedies in the late thirties and early forties that have been hailed classics by critics and audience members alike, including his Hollywood satire Sullivan's Travels, his political satire The Great McGinty, and his divorce satire Palm Beach Story.  However, the film that is most commonly brought up in a discussion of the great films of Preston Sturges is 1941's The Lady Eve. 

The Lady Eve features Stanwyck as con-artist Jean Harrington, who with her card sharp father and their faithful assistant Gerald roam trans-continental cruise ships relieving wealthy travels of some of their riches.  On this particular cruise their mark is wealthy ale hair, Charles "Hopsy" Pike, an ophiologist who has been up the amazon for a year studying snakes.  Hopsy is as naive as they come and easily falls under Jean's spell.  What Jean doesn't account for, is her own development of feelings for Hopsy.  When he proposes she decides to reform and saves him from being another one of her father's victims.  Unfortunately, he discovers her former occupation and cruelly dumps her, devastating Jean and leaving her wanting revenge.  In a bold act of anger and defiance she takes on a new identity as The Lady Eve Sidwitch and walks right back into Hopsy's life and dares him to call her bluff.  Hijinks ensue.

What makes Sturges' style different from Lubitch, is that he embraces pratfalls wholeheartedly.  In some of his other films this is often to the film's detriment; however, in The Lady Eve, Sturges manages to balance the physical comedy with romance.  The biggest asset this film has going for it is the performance of Barbara Stanwyck.  As usual, Stanwyck's character is the smartest person in the room, but in addition to this she manages to imbue this character, who for all intensive purposes is an out-and-out predator, with a remarkable amount of sympathy and heart.  As she starts falling for Hopsy, we see her tough-as-nails/world-weary demeanor melt away and the result is quite touching, making the character of Jean so compelling.  Stanwyck is able to convey her surprise and joy at finding love with Hopsey with an all so subtle change in the cadence of her voice and a look that infects the viewer with warmth; making it easy to get on Jean's revenge bandwagon when Hopsy breaks her heart.  A lesser actress would not be able to handle such heavy lifting.  I also have to give a shout out to Henry Fonda, as the terminally clumsy and naive Hopsy, for falling over (and into) a barrage of pratfalls that would make Charlie Chaplin proud.  The supporting cast including Charles Coburn as Jean's father Colonel Harrington and William Demarest is similarly wonderful.

I honestly cannot say enough positive things about this phenomenal film.  If you only watch one of the films from this series, this one would get my vote.  To further sway you, I give you the scene that has been described by many as being one of the sexiest of all time...

Classic Romantic Comedies Vol. 3: The Mad Miss Manton

We travel, this time, two years later than our last entry into this series, all the way to 1938 for what will likely be the most obscure romantic comedy that I write about.  It features a duo who will definitely appear again, and a women who you will soon grow tired of me praising. 

Directed by Liegh Jason, The Mad Miss Manton, stars the great Brabara Stanwyck as wealthy (is there any other kind?) socialite Melsa Manton, who stumbles upon a corpse in an abandoned building one night while walking her dogs.  When she returns with the police the body is gone, and the cops and media brand it as another one of her (and her band of socialite friends') pranks of which the whole of Manhattan are intimately familiar with.  Reporter, Peter Ames, played by Henry Fonda, is particularly nasty in his apprasial of Miss Manton's trickster ways in a column that he writes for a local paper.  Concerned with solving the murder, saving her name, and sticking it to Peter Ames, Melsa and her band of friends go investigating.  What follows is a delightful 80 minute romp in which Melsa and her girls slowly uncover the identity of the body and the perpetrator, with Ames and the police nipping at their heels.

As you would expect, Ames quickly changes his tune about Melsa, deciding that there is something to her story and mounts his own investigation.  The two butt heads, and as you would expect end up together at the end, and it is their sparkling banter that really lifts this out of the realm of silly screwball comedy and into something more special.  The dialogue is sharp and delivered at a machine gun pace, and as is the case with the majority of comedies starring Barbara Stanwyck she is the smartest person in the room and easily lays Henry Fonda's character to waste.

It is interesting to note that Henry Fonda hated his role in this film, and resented being forced to star in it (a victim of Hollywood's studio system).  He is quoted as saying that he did his best to ignore everything that had to do with the film, including the director and his leading lady.  It is said that his relationship with Stanwyck on this film was very icy, which is surprising considering their considerable chemistry.  It comes as an even greater shock that they would work together on two more occasions, and that Fonda would later admit to a great fondness for Stanwyck that some say was more akin to love.  As mentioned previously, this will not be the last time we focus on this duo.

Here's the first few minutes of the film: