One Paragraph Movie Review: The Lady Eve

Three hundred and tenth film: The Lady Eve, a pleasantly tolerable 1941 screwball comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda as a con-woman and her mark, respectively. This has everything you expect from a 1940s comedy, where everybody wears incredible clothes and talks too fast, where waists are nipped and drinks are sipped in the decade that made not wearing diamond bracelets illegal. The twist — in which Stanwyck, who had previously conned Fonda on a cruise ship, pretends to be a completely different person who looks exactly the same in order to revenge-seduce Fonda — is deeply implausible and stupid, but the leads are so charming and the clothes so billowy-sleeved and stylish that you just go along for the ride. It’s a fantastic example of exactly the kind of thing it is, without the inconvenience of being overly memorable. It’ll do. Two and a half breezy poop decks out of five.