Henry Fonda is Charles Pike, scion of the Pike's Ale Company, "the Ale that made Yale." He and his father, Eugene Pallettr, are rich as Croesus. Fonda, however, has no interest in anything other than snakes. He's now coming home from a year-long expedition to the Amazon collecting the creatures for Dr. Marsdits. (This is a contemporary joke. In 1941 the most prominent popular scientist was herpetologist Raymond Ditmars, the Carl Sagan of his time.) Barbara Stanwyck and her father, Charles Coburn, are also on board the ship that is returning from South America. They spot Fonda at dinner and immediately thrust themselves upon him. They're a team of cynical card sharks and intend to fleece him.
The problem is that Fonda and Stanwyck fall in love. Evidently they spend the night together. Just after he proposes he discovers their identity and pretends to have known all along. The couple part bitterly.
Stanwyck and Coburn run into another grifter, Eric Blore, and they arrange to get even with what they see as Fonda's exploitation of Stanwyck. Blore will assume the identity of an English nobleman and Stanwyck will adopt the role of his daughter. It takes some doing to convince Fonda that she isn't the same woman he met on the ship but eventually Fonda marries the phony English woman.
On the night of their honeymoon, Stanwyck sinks in the barbs by confessing that she's had so many lover she can't keep their names straight. The offended Fonda storms out, steps off the train, and slips into a mud puddle.
Later, once again aboard ship, they meet with Stanwyck adopting her original identity and, since they're already married to each other, retreat to his cabin.
The acting is fine. Henry Fonda makes an exceptionally good dope and Stanwyck is sexier and softer than most of us who knew her screen image only from her later movies might imagine. William Demarest is present to provide yet more lowbrow comedy -- "I'm telling you dat's da same dame!" And the dialog has its felicities. When Stanwyck asks Blore if he knows the Pike family: "Do I know them? Why, I positively swill in their ale." I've tried more than once to get into this, partly because people whose opinions I respect keep recommending it, yet I've never found it exactly enthralling.
Fonda's falling for the pose of "Lady Eve" is unbelievable. And their final meeting, when they fall into each other's arms, with all those complications still hanging murkily in the air, is hard to swallow.
But most of all, this isn't a very funny movie despite the gags and the good performances. It's two steps away from a romantic drama. Take out a few pratfalls and wisecracks and you've got a Joan Crawford weeper or, at best, one of the less light-hearted efforts of Fred and Ginger.
Preston Sturges was a sophisticated and talented guy in almost every respect. He could do better than this -- and he did.
The problem is that Fonda and Stanwyck fall in love. Evidently they spend the night together. Just after he proposes he discovers their identity and pretends to have known all along. The couple part bitterly.
Stanwyck and Coburn run into another grifter, Eric Blore, and they arrange to get even with what they see as Fonda's exploitation of Stanwyck. Blore will assume the identity of an English nobleman and Stanwyck will adopt the role of his daughter. It takes some doing to convince Fonda that she isn't the same woman he met on the ship but eventually Fonda marries the phony English woman.
On the night of their honeymoon, Stanwyck sinks in the barbs by confessing that she's had so many lover she can't keep their names straight. The offended Fonda storms out, steps off the train, and slips into a mud puddle.
Later, once again aboard ship, they meet with Stanwyck adopting her original identity and, since they're already married to each other, retreat to his cabin.
The acting is fine. Henry Fonda makes an exceptionally good dope and Stanwyck is sexier and softer than most of us who knew her screen image only from her later movies might imagine. William Demarest is present to provide yet more lowbrow comedy -- "I'm telling you dat's da same dame!" And the dialog has its felicities. When Stanwyck asks Blore if he knows the Pike family: "Do I know them? Why, I positively swill in their ale." I've tried more than once to get into this, partly because people whose opinions I respect keep recommending it, yet I've never found it exactly enthralling.
Fonda's falling for the pose of "Lady Eve" is unbelievable. And their final meeting, when they fall into each other's arms, with all those complications still hanging murkily in the air, is hard to swallow.
But most of all, this isn't a very funny movie despite the gags and the good performances. It's two steps away from a romantic drama. Take out a few pratfalls and wisecracks and you've got a Joan Crawford weeper or, at best, one of the less light-hearted efforts of Fred and Ginger.
Preston Sturges was a sophisticated and talented guy in almost every respect. He could do better than this -- and he did.