The Lady Eve

Preston Sturges's reputation has grown again in recent years, perhaps decades, but one might say that to watch The Lady Eve (1941) is to do so with what become mixed feelings.

Here is something not cohesive enough to become true screwball, and there is a succession of pratfalls out of kilter with slapstick. An upside is that, for all that Barbara Stanwtck and Henry Fonda are not at home here, they are buttressed by a cast which is given much to do - something so ofren lacking in today's star-ficussed movies