Preston Sturges’ “The Lady Eve” is considered, “A frivolous masterpiece. Like “Bringing Up Baby,” “The Lady Eve” is a mixture of visual and verbal slapstick, and of high artifice and pratfalls. Barbara Stanwyck keeps sticking out a sensational leg and Henry Fonda keeps tripping over it,” as Pauline Kael wrote in her book in 1992.
It isn’t often I disagree with the experts, and “The Lady Eve” is on a number of best movies of all time lists, including the Village Voice poll and AFI’s 100 Laughs (#55) and AFI’s 100 Passions (#26), but I didn’t think the film had the speed of a number of other screwball comedies like “Bringing Up Baby” or “His Girl Friday,” nor did I find it to have the wit of Sturges’ own “Sullivan’s Travels,” a film so self aware of the film industry around it that it seems an early example of shattering the fourth wall. Continue reading “Rapid Response: The Lady Eve”