Directed by Preston Sturges
Produced by Paul Jones, Buddy G. DeSylva (uncredited)
Written by Monckton Hoffe (story), Preston Sturges
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda
Music by Phil Boutelje, Charles Bradshaw, Gil Grau, Sigmund Krumgold, John Leipold, Leo Shuken (all uncredited)
Cinematography Victor Milner
Editing by Stuart Gilmore
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) February 25, 1941 (NYC)
March 21 (general)
Running time 94 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Lady Eve is a 1941 American screwball comedy film.^[1][2] It is about a mismatched couple who meet on a luxury liner, written by Preston Sturges based on a story by Monckton Hoffe, and directed by Sturges, his third directorial effort, after The Great McGinty and Christmas in July. The film stars Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck and features Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest and Eric Blore.

In 1994, The Lady Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Plot

Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) is a beautiful con artist. Along with her equally larcenous father, “Colonel” Harrington (Charles Coburn) and his partner Gerald (Melville Cooper), she is out to fleece rich, naive Charles Pike (Henry Fonda), the heir to the Pike Ale fortune (“The Ale That Won for Yale”). Pike is a woman-shy snake expert just returning from a year-long expedition up the Amazon. Though surrounded by ladies desperate for his attention, Charles is putty in Jean’s hands.

But even the best laid plans can go astray. First, Jean falls hard for Pike and shields him from her card sharp father. Then, when Pike’s suspicious minder/valet Muggsy (William Demarest) discovers the truth about her and her father, Pike dumps her. Furious at being scorned, she re-enters his life masquerading as the posh “Lady Eve Sidwich”, niece of Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith (Eric Blore), another con man who’s been swindling the rich folk of Connecticut. Jean is determined to torment Pike mercilessly – as she explains, “I’ve got some unfinished business with him — I need him like the axe needs the turkey” – and it doesn’t hurt that Pike’s wealthy businessman father (Eugene Pallette) is impressed by English nobility and eager to promote a marriage between his son and her ladyship. When Pike meets “Eve”, he immediately recognizes her, but is so bewildered he constantly trips and falls over himself. Although Muggsy tries to convince him “she’s the same dame”, Pike reasons that Jean would never come close to his home without at least disguising herself, so he concludes the resemblance is only a coincidence. After a brief courtship, they marry, and on the train to their honeymoon, “Eve” begins to confess her past, dropping name after name after name of old boyfriends and lovers. Pike finally gets fed up and jumps off the train. Now separated, Jean’s con team urges her to close the deal, saying she’s got him over a barrel and can make a killing in a settlement. While Charles’ father and lawyers are on the phone with her pleading to settle quickly, she says she doesn’t want any money at all, just for Pike to tell her it’s over to her face. Pike refuses, and instead gets on a ship back to the Amazon. On the boat, Jean “bumps into” Pike, just as they met before, and they instantly dash to his cabin where they mutually confess their love for each other and the fact they are both married. Muggsy escapes the room, muttering, “Definitely the same dame…”

Henry Fonda from the trailer for the film

Cast

• Barbara Stanwyck as Jean Harrington
• Henry Fonda as Charles Poncefort Pike
• Charles Coburn as “Colonel” Harrington
• Eugene Pallette as Horace Pike
• William Demarest as Muggsy, aka Ambrose Murgatroyd
• Eric Blore as Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith
• Melville Cooper as Gerald
• Martha O’Driscoll as Martha
• Janet Beecher as Janet Pike
• Robert Greig as Burrows
• Dora Clement as Gertrude
• Luis Alberni as Emile, Pike’s chef

Cast notes:

• Aside from William Demarest, members of Sturges’ unofficial “stock company” of character actors who appear in The Lady Eve include Al Bridge, Jimmy Conlin, Robert Dudley, Robert Greig, Arthur Hoyt, George Melford, Torben Meyer, Frank Moran, Victor Potel, Harry Rosenthal, Julius Tannen and Robert Warwick.
• This is the fifth of ten films written by Preston Sturges that William Demarest appeared in.^[3]

Production

The 19-page story by Monckton Hoffe which The Lady Eve was loosely based on was called “Two Bad Hats,” which was also the working title for the film. Sturges was assigned to write a script based on Hoffe’s story in 1938, with Claudette Colbert expected to be the star. Sturges and Paramount producer Albert Lewin had some written disagreement in 1939 about the development of the script, with Lewin writing to Sturges “”the first two-thirds of the script, in spite of the high quality of your jokes, will require an almost one hundred percent rewrite.” Sturges objected, and eventually Lewin gave in, writing: “Follow your witty nose, my boy; it will lead you and me and Paramount to the Elysian pastures of popular entertainment.”^[4][5]

The censors at the Hays Office initially rejected the script that was submitted to them, because of “”the definite suggestion of a sex affair between your two leads” which lacked “compensating moral values.” A later, revised, script was approved.^[4]

The casting of the lead roles for Eve went through some changes. At some point the studio wanted Brian Aherne for the male lead,^[5] and Joel McCrea, Madeleine Carroll and Paulette Goddard were under consideration as of July 1940, but in August 1940 Fred MacMurray and Madeleine Carroll were announced as co-stars. In September, Darryl Zanuck lent Henry Fonda to co-star with Paulette Goddard, who was then replaced by Barbara Stanwyck.^[4]

The Lady Eve was in production from 21 October to 5 December 1940.^[6] According to Donald Spoto in Madcap: The Life of Preston Sturges, Sturges “invariably paraded on [the] set with a colorful beret or a felt cap with a feather protruding, a white cashmere scarf blowing gaily round his neck and a print shirt in loud hues…the reason for the peculiar outfits, he told visitors, was that they facilitated crew members’ finding him amid the crowds of actors, technicians, and the public.” Barbara Stanwyck compared Sturges’ set to “a carnival”. In his biography of Stanwyck, author Axel Madsen wrote that “The set was so ebullient that instead of going to their trailers between setups, the players relaxed in canvas chairs with their sparkling director, listening to his fascinating stories or going over their lines with him. To get into mood for Barbara’s bedroom scene, Sturges wore a bathrobe.”^[5]

Location shooting for the opening jungle scene took place at Lake Baldwin of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia, California.^[4][7] In that scene, Henry Fonda’s character refers to “Professor Marsdit”, whose last name is an anagram of that of Raymond L. Ditmars of the American Museum of Natural History, a well-known reptile expert and popular science writer of the time.^[8]

The film premiered in New York City on 25 February 1941, and went into general release on 21 March of that year.^[6] It was marketed with a number of taglines, including When you deal a fast shuffle… Love is in the cards.^[9] The film ranked as one of the top ten films of that year in box office sales.^[4]

The Lady Eve was released on video in the U.S. on 12 July 1990, and was subsequently re-released on 30 June 1993.^[10]

Analysis

Barbara Stanwyck from a trailer for The Lady Eve

The clearest theme, and easiest to pick out very early in the film is gender inversion. Jean Harrington is clearly in control of the situation for the majority of the film, until her feelings get in the way of her previous, dubious intentions. Until she realizes that she loves him, there was little sense of the struggle between equals that typifies most romantic comedies.^[11]

The film has been lauded for a unique blend of slapstick and satire.^[12] We see the “fall of man” implied by the title of the film in many ways. First is that literal, that being Pike continuously falling down in various situations, and his “fall from innocence” as he is sucked into the deceptive plots laid out by Jean.^[13]

Sturges also uses deceptiveness in appearance profusely throughout the film. Things as small as the distinction, or lack thereof, between beer and ale to the various disguises of Jean Harrington add depth to the plot line. Even most of the characters have two names (Charles=Hopsie, Jean=Eugenia/Eve Sidwich). This lack of recognition sets the stage for the storyline.

Sturges repeatedly suggests that the “lowliest boob could rise to the top with the right degree of luck, bluff and fraud.”^[14]

Awards and honors

Monckton Hoffe, who wrote the original story for The Lady Eve, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story. In that same year, the National Board of Review nominated the film for “Best Picture,” and the New York Times named it as the best film of the year in their “10 Best Films of 1941″ list.^[15]

In 1994, The Lady Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

American Film Institute recognition

• 2000: AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Laughs #55
• 2002: AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Passions #26

Remake

In 1956, the plot of The Lady Eve was recycled for the movie The Birds and the Bees, starring George Gobel, Mitzi Gaynor and David Niven. Preston Sturges received a co-writer credit for the film, although he did not actually participate in the project.^[16]

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Coursodon, Jean-Pierre, American Directors: Volume I, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983
• Nochimson, Martha, “The Lady Eve and Sullivan’s Travels”, Cineaste, Summer 2002, Vol. 27, Issue 3
• Rowe, Kathleen, The Unruly Woman, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995
• Sarris, Andrew, The American Cinema, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1968

Links

• The Lady Eve at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lady Eve at the TCM Movie Database
• The Lady Eve at Allmovie
• Criterion Collection essay by James Harvey

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Directed by Jeff Probst
Produced by Brad Van Arragon, Katy Wallin, Shawn Williamson
Written by Jeff Probst, from a story by Jim Gulian
Starring Erik Palladino, James Earl Jones, Ryan Reynolds, Dash Mihok, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster
Music by Rob King, B. C. Smith
Cinematography Francis Kenny
Editing by Brian Berdan
Distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment, Silverline Pictures
Release date June 16, 2001 (2001-06-16) (Seattle)
October 28, 2003 (2003-10-28)
Running time 100 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Finder’s Fee is an American film directed by Jeff Probst from his original screenplay. The story is based on an actual event that occurred to Probst.

Plot

The film takes place over the course of a single evening. Tepper, played by Erik Palladino, finds a wallet on his way home from work. He contacts the owner of the wallet by telephone, and then later discovers that the wallet contains the winning ticket in a $6 million lottery.

Complications arise when Tepper’s friends come over for their regular poker night. One of the conditions of the game is that everyone purchase a ticket for the lottery, to be thrown into the pot. The game is played as a freezeout, with the winner collecting all the tickets and any prizes they may be worth. When the owner of the wallet, played by James Earl Jones, arrives, he realizes that the winning ticket is in the pot, and stays to play in the game.

Cast

Awards

Finder’s Fee won the Golden Space Needle Award, given to the audience’s choice for Best Picture at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival.

Jeff Probst won the Best Screenplay (Feature Film) at the 2001 Method Fest Independent Film Festival.

James Earl Jones won Best Actor in a DVD Premiere Movie at the 2003 DVDX Awards.

Links

• Finder’s Fee at the Internet Movie Database

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.