Lady Eve

Even though Barbara Stanwyck wasn't a great beauty, she sure was a great actress. Henry Fonda does a great job as the naive rich man up against Stanwyck as a con-woman. The plot is twisty and silly, exactly as I expect Preston Sturges meant to write it. But the ending is nonsensical! Fonda falls in love with Stanwyck on a ship, they get peeved at each other, she shows up later to seduce him (to get even with him), in the guise of her twin, he falls in love again, she gives him the shaft, and then she meets up with him "by chance" again, this time as the original woman he fell in love with. As he claps eyes on her, it's true love again. Why would he be so thrilled to see the first woman again? She who pissed him off in the first place! It's very possible I just wasn't watching this film in the right light. It's supposed to be a silly comedy, and that it sure is. Perhaps that brand of silliness doesn't hold up well nowadays...or at least not for me.

year: 1941
length: 97 min.
rating: 3.0
review written: March 2, 2003
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033804/combined