The Lady Eve Analysis

The Lady Eve (1941)

Screenplay and Direction: Preston Sturges
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda

This film is a story of a father-daughter duo who are con-artists; they make money off of people easily. When they encounter Pike, the daughter and Pike fall in love - and just before she is about to tell him who she is, someone else tells Pike about it. Now it's getting interesting, drama is always created out of revelations of secrets and their confrontations. Here, Pike is silent and seems to be disturbed and Jean comes and is casually talking to Pike - and when suddenly Pike shows her the photo - there is silence from both sides. Moments like these are so precious to writers to explore character, because the choices that characters make in situations which test them are the ones that define them. Some people lose control over their thoughts, and go haywire - and some overreact, punish too much - and some feel helpless.

After this, Eve changes her outlook and meets Pike again like a stranger and they again fall in love. Now, she plays the loop of "you'd assume I'd do this, so I'll instead do this" and it works. She says that he looks familiar, which he thinks that a con-artist wouldn't say because that'll raise doubt. Finally, she lets go of the con-job and goes back to him as Jean - the character arc although it feels sudden - there is progression, because when she fell in love, her first instinct was to save him from her dad. But was the whole "Eve" thing, a con just to make him fall back in love with Jean? Oh my! Then my whole understanding of the material could be wrong, and then it's a screwball comedy as I read in the description of the film. The scene where Jean looks into the mirror and makes fun of him in the starting scenes, we still do that when we see people we know talking far away - where we can't hear them but see their expressions.