Vintage Movies: “The Lady Eve”

MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.

The Lady Eve (1941, 93 minutes)

One of Preston Sturges’ best screwball comedies, The Lady Eve matches a scheming Barbara Stanwyck with a dazed Henry Fonda, who spends most of the film looking like he’s just been hit on the head with a heavy object.

Jean Harrington (Stanwyck) and her father Colonel Harrington (Charles Coburn) are onboard a luxury ocean liner solely to fleece its upper-crust passengers in high-stakes card games. The ship stops off the coast of South America to pick up Charles Pike (Fonda) and Muggsy (William Demarest), his bodyguard/valet. Charles, the reluctant heir to the Pike Ale brewery of Connecticut, has just spent a year in the Amazon wilderness studying rare reptiles. To the available young women onboard, he could be the catch of a lifetime.

Jean believes her ship may have just come in. “Gee, I hope he’s rich,” she says. “I hope he thinks he’s a wizard at cards, and he’s got a big fat wife, so I don’t have to dance in the moonlight with him. A sucker always steps on your feet,” she moans. “Don’t be vulgar, Jean,” the colonel warns. “Let’s be crooked, but never common.” She quickly sizes up the effect Charles has on each female in the ship’s dining room. “Every Jane is giving him the thermometer, but he feels they’re all a waste of time.” The bookworm’s nose remains stuck into a weighty volume titled Are Snakes Necessary?

Jean’s method of introduction leaves nothing to chance. As Charles walks by her table, she sticks out her leg. He stumbles face-first into a waiter, bringing a large platter of food clattering to the floor. “Why don’t you look where you’re going!” she says. “Look what you did to my shoe. You knocked the heel off. You can just take me down to my cabin for another pair.”

“What were you doing in the Amazon?” she asks downstairs as he awkwardly slips a new shoe onto her foot. “Looking for snakes. I’m an ophiologist,” he replies. “I thought you were in the beer business,” she says. “I don’t like beer,” he complains. “It gives me ulcers. It wasn’t enough for everyone to call me ‘Hopsie’ since I was six years old.” “Are you all right, Hopsie?” she smiles, noting his discomfort. “There’s something about that perfume,” he murmurs. “Why, Hopsie, you ought to be kept in a cage,” she says, gently pushing him away.

Later, as they enter his cabin, he says, “Shhh, I don’t want to wake Emma.” “Who’s Emma?” she whispers. “She’s a rare Brazilian snake that … ” “A snake!” she interrupts. “She seems to have got out again,” he mutters as Emma pokes her nose from between the sheets. “Let me out of here!!” shouts Jean, bolting for the door and screaming at the top of her lungs down the hallway.