The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, February 8-14
The Lady Eve (1941)
Directed by Preston Sturges
A romantically-hopeless ophiologist returning from a year in the Amazon falls right into the trap of a cunning temptress, though what the adroit beauty doesn’t expect, is that she’ll fall for him just as hard. Charles Pike (Henry Fonda, dashing and gangling), heir to Pike’s Pale––the ALE that won for YALE––is human putty in the delicate, frisky hands of Jean Harrington (the magnificent, card-sharp Barbara Stanwyck) and he remains that way until he discovers her true desire––to marry him for his money. The pair experience bliss on a boat before a cool and vindictive farewell, leaving Jean scorned. Though she openly expresses it’s because she wants revenge, we know her unsuspecting sin is a coverup for yearning desire.
With the help of a family friend, Jean disguises herself as the mysteriously British “Lady Eve,” a noblewoman who seduces poor Charles for a second time. He cannot believe that Eve is the same woman as Anne––it would be far too obvious a ploy, or so he imagines. Stanwyck is flawless as she deludes a blundering, awestruck Fonda through the gunshot wedding, inevitable unmasking, and squawking honeymoon sequence.
Amongst boyish shyness and impeccable comic timing, Sturges created the quintessential screwball comedy: a genuine love story about a couple who not only seduce each other, but themselves, and who deserve the results of their desires. Samantha Vacca (February 14, 4:30pm, 6:30pm, 8:30pm; February 15, 5:15pm, 7:15pm, 9:15pm at the Metrograph)