Barbara Stanwyck

THE LADY EVE

Paramount, 1941. Directed by Preston Sturges.  Camera:  Victor Milner.  With Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn Eugene Pallette, William Demarest, Eric Blore, Melville Cooper, Martha O'Driscoll, Janet Beecher, Robert Greig, Doris Clement, Luis Alberni, Frank Moran, Pat West, Wilson Benge, Harry Rosenthal, Abdullah Abbas, Norman Ainsley, Arthur Hoyt, Jimmy Conlin, Al Bridge, Vic Potel, Reginald Sheffield, Wanda McKay, Betty Farrington, Nell Craig, Robert Dudley, Torben Meyer.

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After Charles Poncefort Pike, an ophiologist (snake expert) and heir to the Pike's Pale Ale fortune, leaves a zoological expedition in the South American jungle, he boards an ocean liner headed for the East Coast.  Although the eligible bachelor only has eyes for his book on snakes and is oblivious to all the young female passengers, Jean Harrington succeeds in getting his attention by tripping him as he leaves the dining room.

Jean, a con artist and cardsharp who works with her father, ensnares Charlie with her feminine wiles and, despite the warnings of Charlie's suspicious guardian, Muggsy, Charlie falls in love with Jean.  Much to her own surprise, Jean also falls in love with Charlie, and informs her father that she intends to go straight.

"Colonel" Harrington does not share her good intentions, however, and despite Jean's intervention in his card game that night, Harrington wins $32,000 from the luckless Charlie.  Harrington pretends to rip the check up to impress Jean, but Charlie breaks off his engagement to Jean when he learns that she and her father are well-documented con artists.  Hurt, Jean's tender thoughts of love turn to calculating thoughts of revenge, and is happy when Harrington produces the check intact.

The ship docks, and some time later, the Harringtons encounter their friend Pearly at an East Coast horse race.  Pearly, also a con artist, is posing as Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith while living in the Pike hometown of Bridgefield, Connecticut.  Still bent on revenge, Jean arranges to pose as Pearly's niece, Lady Eve Sidwich of England.  The Pikes throw a lavish introduction party for Lady Eve, at which a clumsy Charlie is astonished by her resemblance to Jean.

Although Muggsy insists that Lady Eve and Jean are the same person, Charlie, using backward logic, thinks the resemblance is too close and that consequently, they must be different women.  He soon falls deeply in love with Lady Eve.

Jean and Charlie become engaged, much to the Pikes's delight, and she continues her pose through their wedding.  She finally exacts her revenge on their wedding night by relating a fictional history of love affairs to her stunned husband.  Mortified by his new wife's apparently sordid past, Charlie immediately gets off their honeymoon train in his pajamas and later sues for divorce.

Now remorseful, Jean realizes that she is still in love with Charlie and insists on settling without remuneration if Charlie will only speak with her, but he refuses.  Out of desperation, Jean books passage on the same ocean liner on which Charlie is traveling and again trips him to get his attention.  Charlie is thrilled to see Jean, still unaware that she is also Lady Eve, and when he tries to explain that he is married, she assures him that she, too, is married.  Muggsy, reacting to the reunion, mutters, "Positively the same dame."

Notes
The working title of this film was Two Bad Hats, which also was the title of Monckton Hoffe's original story.  Preston Sturges's onscreen credit reads:  "Written and directed by Preston Sturges."  The following information has been taken from the Preston Sturges Collection at the UCLA Arts--Special Collections Library:  In 1938, an HR news item reported that Sturges had been assigned to write the script from Hoffe's story, and that the film was to star Claudette Colbert.  In 1939, Sturges consulted with producer Albert Lewin about his early script for The Lady Eve, and, among several criticisms, Lewin responded that he felt that "the first two-thirds of the script, in spite of the high quality of your jokes, will require an almost one hundred percent rewrite."  Lewin reasoned that the sequences showing "Charles" as being "inordinately fond of snakes" served no purpose and "should be ruthlessly excised."  Sturges responded with a letter in which he agreed that the sequences as yet had no connection to the rest of the film, but he adamantly stood by them.  In his follow-up letter, Lewin "surrender[ed] unconditionally" to Sturges's judgment, and added the following:  "Follow your witty nose, my boy; it will lead you and me and Paramount to the Elysian pastures of popular entertainment."  Information in the MPAA/PCA Files at the AMPAS Library reveals that the PCA initially rejected the script due to "the definite suggestion of a sex affair between your two leads" which lacked "compensating moral values."  A revised script was approved, however.

Contemporary news items reported the following about the production:  In July 1940, Joel McCrea, Madeleine Carroll and Paulette Goddard were considered for the lead roles.  In August 1940, Madeleine Carroll and Fred MacMurray were announced as the co-stars, and in September 1940, Darryl Zanuck loaned Henry Fonda to co-star with Paulette Goddard.  Goddard, however, was replaced by Barbara Stanwyck.

The opening jungle river scene was shot on location at Baldwin Lake near Santa Anita, California.  Modern sources add the following credits: Wilda Bennett, Evelyn Beresford, Georgie Cooper, Gayne Whitman, Alfred Hall, Bertram Marburgh, George Melford, Arthur Stuart Hull, Kenneth Gibson (guests at party), Joe North (butler at party), Pauline Drake (social secretary), Julius Tannen, Ray Flynn, Harry A. Bailey (lawyers in Pike's office), Ambrose Barker (Mac), Jean Phillips (Sweetie), Ella Neal, Marcelle Christopher (daughters on boat), John Hartley (young man on boat), Eva Dennison, Almeda Fowler, Helen Dickson (mothers on boat), Mary Akin, Jan Buckingham (women on boat), Esther Michelson (wife on boat), Mrs. Gardner Crane (lady on boat), Frances Raymond (old lady on boat), Ernesto Palmese, Mitchell Ingraham (men on boat), Cyril Ring, Sam Ash, (husbands on boat), Richard Kipling (father on boat), Harry Depp (spectacled man), Jack Richardson (father of girl on boat), Wally Walker (Sparky), Robert Warwick (passenger).

Monckton Hoffe was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Writing (Original Story) for this film.  The Lady Eve was voted best picture of the year by the NYT, and ranked among the top ten films in box office sales.  In 1956, Paramount released The Birds and the Bees, a remake of The Lady Eve, directed by Norman Taurog, and starring George Gobel, Mitzi Gaynor and David Niven.

American Film Institute Catalog

Poster artwork courtesy of Pete