I realize that the screwball comedy genre has its own kind of logic, but "The Lady Eve" strikes me as having no logic at all. Though well written, which one expects from a Sturges film, I came away with the unsettling sense that the audience was being played for suckers.
The turning point in the film appears to be the moment when Hopsie was presented with a photo of Jean and her father as evidence of their swindling career. This can come as no surprise to the audience, which has already seen how the Colonel can turn a five-card nothing into four kings, then four aces. But can a supposed scientist (I forget the proper name for "snake hunter") be so gullible as to fall for his blatant card-sharpery? And when he confronts Jean with the photo, can his sense of betrayal and humiliation really be so shocking to her?
Yet this event sends Jean on a completely preposterous crusade of revenge. What exactly is her trick? To pose as an upper-class Brit who, by coincidence, looks exactly like Jean. And though Muggsy, Hopsie's dimwit ward, sees though the imposture immediately, our scientist falls for it, literally and figuratively, in no time.
Jean/Eve finally delivers the coup de grace while on their honeymoon -- in a train, of course. As she divulges her numerous supposed dalliances, Sturges intercuts shots of train whistles, lightning and the obligatory tunnel. Maybe this Freudian stuff was novel back in 1941; today it verges on self- parody. Watching Hopsie detrain with a muddy pratfall (one of literally dozens in the film), Eve/Jean seems to have an attack of conscience, as though she's just now realizing he "the only man I ever loved."
Stanwyck is sensational, even if her character(s) make no sense at all. William Demarest is very good, and occasionally hilarious, as Muggsy. The whole case, in fact, is first-rate. But Fonda's character is impossible to sympathize with, let alone root for, so improbably clueless and clumsy is Hopsie. Is he really surprised that an English aristocrat is not a virgin (the whole point of the setup)? Is he really so stupid as to fall for a grifter not once, but twice? Yes, evidently he is. It's clear to me that his real element is with the snakes of the Amazon, not those of Connecticut.
The turning point in the film appears to be the moment when Hopsie was presented with a photo of Jean and her father as evidence of their swindling career. This can come as no surprise to the audience, which has already seen how the Colonel can turn a five-card nothing into four kings, then four aces. But can a supposed scientist (I forget the proper name for "snake hunter") be so gullible as to fall for his blatant card-sharpery? And when he confronts Jean with the photo, can his sense of betrayal and humiliation really be so shocking to her?
Yet this event sends Jean on a completely preposterous crusade of revenge. What exactly is her trick? To pose as an upper-class Brit who, by coincidence, looks exactly like Jean. And though Muggsy, Hopsie's dimwit ward, sees though the imposture immediately, our scientist falls for it, literally and figuratively, in no time.
Jean/Eve finally delivers the coup de grace while on their honeymoon -- in a train, of course. As she divulges her numerous supposed dalliances, Sturges intercuts shots of train whistles, lightning and the obligatory tunnel. Maybe this Freudian stuff was novel back in 1941; today it verges on self- parody. Watching Hopsie detrain with a muddy pratfall (one of literally dozens in the film), Eve/Jean seems to have an attack of conscience, as though she's just now realizing he "the only man I ever loved."
Stanwyck is sensational, even if her character(s) make no sense at all. William Demarest is very good, and occasionally hilarious, as Muggsy. The whole case, in fact, is first-rate. But Fonda's character is impossible to sympathize with, let alone root for, so improbably clueless and clumsy is Hopsie. Is he really surprised that an English aristocrat is not a virgin (the whole point of the setup)? Is he really so stupid as to fall for a grifter not once, but twice? Yes, evidently he is. It's clear to me that his real element is with the snakes of the Amazon, not those of Connecticut.