Give The Lady Eve a shot this Valentine's Day, or any day, for that matter. Those 1940s romantic comedies truly hold up compared to most of the stinkers that come out these days; there's just an easygoing charm about them that's hard to resist once you get into it. The Lady Eve isn't my choice for the funniest movie of the era (I'm a big fan of His Girl Friday), but it's probably one of the tightest and best-scripted. The dialog can be subtle, and it helps that Henry Fonda seems to be up for anything to be spilled on him or to trip over however many times. The physical elements are often missing from modern comedies (is it an insurance thing?), so there's some fun in seeing a screen legend like Fonda fall all over the place for a movie. He's not known as much of a pratfall guy, y'know. And this might be Barbara Stanwyck's best role, if not for Double Indemnity. It's certainly neck and neck - I feel like it's easier to gravitate to her character here than in the latter. But then, the reasons this works in Double Indemnity's favor is a whole other essay. My point is: God, why can't they make romantic comedies like this anymore?
Hollywood churned out movies like a production line at this point, so maybe they didn't overthink things so much. Certainly, it's been said that Casablanca was "just another movie" to everyone involved, and I have no reason to think that The Lady Eve would be different for anyone else. Maybe this is why the comedies of the era strike that balance of being fun to make and fun to watch. Stanwyck, in particular, seems to have fun playing the grifting seductress who wins over Henry Fonda's naive trust fund kid. I'm sure it was hard work and all, but there seems to be a lightheartedness in Stanwyck dressing up in so many costumes and playing with accents in character. It's a rare performance that manages to be simultaneously great acting and infectious. Even the momentum of the picture isn't forced in any way; there isn't extensive fretting over will-they-or-won't-they drama. It actually resolves itself so suddenly, that's almost a joke in and of itself. That leave a tidy 92 minutes packed full of jokes and fun.
While I could go in a couple directions on what would be Barbara Stanwyck's best performance, I would also nominate this as the best role Henry Fonda got in his prime. Not just for his pratfalls - which are funny and taken with aplomb. But his boyish good looks work absolutely perfectly here. His roles in dramatic fare such as The Grapes of Wrath hold up; don't get me wrong. My Darling Clementine is my favorite western of the 1940s. But Fonda's good looks work best for me when they are conveyed with the light stupidity here. Can you really truly buy Fonda as OK Corral gunslinger Wyatt Earp? Exactly. That's why playing a kind-hearted simpleton works so well here; it's easier to believe he's a sheltered rich kid's son than a wandering outlaw. It comes down to his looks and is not a knock on those roles or Fonda himself. His playing a villain in Once Upon a Time in America is a whole other story, though, partly because it plays off of his good guy roles such as this one.
