★★★★★
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My Hall Of Fame
The Lady Eve is a romantic comedy about Charles Pike (Henry Fonda) who is the heir to the Pike Ale fortune. He is crossing the Pacific on a boat when he meets the gorgeous Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck). She is a con artist
traveling with her father (Charles Coburn), and they are out looking for a sucker. They have certainly found him in Pike. She flirts innocently at first but the moment she gets him lying down, he gives in without her even trying. The only problem is that she falls for him almost as fast as he fell for her.
This is an incredibly fun movie to watch, and I assume it was just as much fun to make. Stanwyck is incredibly funny and just as dangerously seductive as any of her more typical femme fatale roles. It is nice to see her get to use her sexuality to be manipulative without anyone having to die.
If you have a brilliant woman, you need a brilliant man, even if he is playing the sap. Henry Fonda gives what could be his funniest role as the goofy lost soul wandering around looking for something, but never knowing what it is. (By the way, it’s Barbara Stanwyck.)
If it isn’t enough to have these two fantastic actors together, the viewers are also blessed to see Charles Coburn in the role of the happy-go-lucky father waiting to see how badly things go when love comes into play. He is hilarious throughout the movie, and no one else could have done any better.
Once you have all these pieces together, you only need one more thing in order to make a great movie: Preston Sturges. As long as you have him molding the script into a work of art, you’ll be fine. He knows exactly how to get laughs throughout the movie, and even into the next day when you think back on it. This is a great movie, that no one should deprive themselves of seeing.
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