The Lady Eve (1941)

RATING: 8/10


It's hard to resist this romantic comedy from director Preston Sturges.


This 1941 effort with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyk offers some very funny moments, a great love story and a generous dollop of slapstick. As film director Peter Bogdonavich notes in an introduction to the film, audiences would rarely see this much comedic effort from Fonda in another movie.


FATHER AND DAUGHTER, CONNIVING THIEVES


Colonel Harrington (Charles Coburn) and Jean (Stanwyk) are a father-daughter team of card sharks. They ride ocean liners and fleece well-to-do passengers of their riches. Their sights are set on Charles Pike (Fonda), the heir of a beer empire.


Charles doesn't much care for brewed hops. He's into snakes. Charles boards an ocean liner after spending a year on safari in the Amazon. His luggage includes a snake in a box. See any references to the Garden of Eden yet?


THE LADIES MAKE THEIR MOVE


Plenty of ladies, young and old, try to catch Pike's attention in the ship's dining room. Jean watches, and comments, on their efforts before making sure Pike can't miss her when he walks by. She immediately kicks her seduction efforts into overdrive. Within minutes she has him in her cabin.


Charles is originally a target, but Jean finds herself really falling in love with him. The heir to beer is smitten too, until he learns Jean's background and figures he is being played for a dupe. Very quickly, his attitude turns ice cold. His marriage proposal is forgotten. He leaves the ship alone.


I LOVED HER, I LOVE YOU


Jean, hurt badly, slips back into her role as dupster and finds an opportunity to get back into Pike's life. He falls for her again, this time as an English noble woman, not knowing it's his old love.


His handler, Muggsy (William Demarest), isn't fooled so easily, but his earnest warnings are ignored.


Jean, now Eve, is a big hit with Charles' father (Eugene Pallette) and other society folks. The younger Pike keeps tripping over furniture, and people, while being distracted with the fair dame.


A card game between Colonel Harrington, Jean and Charles is a gut-busting highight of this black and white film. Harrington is determined to clean out his rich competitor. Jean wants to prevent her new-found love from losing thousands of dollars. Dialogue between Harrington and Jean, and their respective slights of hands with a deck of cards, are standouts.


That's followed by Eve, now married to Charles, sharing details of her relationships with many other men on their wedding night. The train they're travelling on isn't the only thing blowing steam.


UNCLE CHARLIE, IS THAT YOU?


What a treat to have Coburn and Pallette in supporting roles. Coburn gets some delicious dialgoue. Pallette's businessman character wonders about his son while being delighted with Eve's introduction to the communityh. If Demarest looks familiar, he was Uncle Charlie in more than 200 episodes of the television show, My Three Sons, with Fred McMurray.


The Lady Eve also offers something of a rare sight for a film from Hollywood's Golden Age. The opening credits include an animated snake. It's hard not to get bitten by this film's appeal. Dig in.

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Here's my homework assignment after watching this heavenly film.


View another movie that's penned by Samson Raphaelson (Suspicion, The Shop Around the Corner).


HEAVENLY EFFORT FROM LUBITSCH AND RAPHAELSON

heaven can wait 1943 is a delight for the eyes, with its gorgeous use of Technicolor, and the ears with a sharp script that delivers some very funny lines.


A dead Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche) prepares to meet Satan after his earthly demise. His Excellency (Laird Cregar) isn't familiar with the less-than-saintly actions that prompted Van Cleve to take the down stairs to his desk.


Van Cleve tells his story and all of the women he crossed paths with since entering the world with a very rich New York City family in the late 1800s.

HENRY MEETS HIS GIRL

Henry's main ambition is burning through the money his family has earned. He stays up all hours of the night as a partyboy. He decides to straighten up his ways when he happens upon Martha (Gene Tierney). "I might even go to work," Henry suggests about her powerful sway over him.


There are several standout scenes in this 1943 effort from Ernst Lubisch (The Shop Around the Corner).


An early one happens when Henry pretends to be a bookstore employee when Martha tries to buy a book about making a husband happy. He senses she's not overly keen about the fella she's going to tie the knot with. Turns out her potential better half is Henry's cousin, the all work and no fun Albert Van Cleve (Allyn Joslyn).


Martha is the daughter of a Kansas-based meat packer E.F. Strable (Eugene Pallette). He gets the best opening line of any character in this film. Another scene worth savouring is his verbal tussle, with a butler's help, with his wife (Marjorie Main) over the Sunday funnies.


COBURN IS A DELIGHT


Charles Coburn (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monkey Business) delivers solid suport as Hugo Van Cleve, the grandfather who earned the family fortune and has a soft spot for Henry, even if he's a lazy oaf.


For all its fun, Heaven Can Wait also explores mortality -- watch for a neat montage of birthday cakes with an ever-growing number of candles -- and relationships. The Strables don't have much of a marriage. Henry loves Martha, but his eye does wonder . . .


Helene Reynolds didn't have a long career in Hollywood. She only appeared in 14 titles between 1941 and 1948. But she has a solid appearance near the film's end as Peggy Nash, a show girl who has caught the affections of Henry's son, Jack (Tod Andrews, Beneath the Planet of the Apes). Nash is on to Henry's ways to prevent a family scandal and quickly turns the tables on him.


Don't put off seeing this film. Make a date with Heaven Can Wait.

RATING: 9/10


FUN FACTS: Spring Byington, who appears as Henry's mother, had guest spots on several 1960s television series including I Dream of Jeannie. Batman and Mister Ed. See if you can find her in the original Mutiny on the Bounty.


Marjorie Main appeared as Ma Kettle in several Ma Kettle films.

Gene Tierney was the star of the great American film noir, Laura.

Film editor Dorothy Spencer's other credits include To Be or Not to Be, also directed by Ernst Lubisch, and My Darling Clementine.


Don Ameche was one of the featured voice talents in Homeward Bound - The Incredible Journey

NOT SO FUN FACT: Laird Cregar's career was painfully short. He only made 16 films before dying in 1944 at 31.