Force of Arms (1951)

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Starring William Holden, 1951′s Force of Arms stands out simply because it doesn’t stand out at all. It is singularly bland, being neither a bit good nor a bit bad but just a whole lot of just okay.

In that sense it is “bad,” though I think that term should be used more judiciously. Here, we have a movie with a number of good elements but when they come together they don’t cohere into anything interesting. I suspect it is the kind of movie that was dreamt up to satisfy some studio goals but had no dramatic reason to be. So it feels uninspired.

And it didn’t help that just prior to seeing it I saw the movie’s two stars, William Holden and Nancy Olson, in another movie they made, the magnificent Sunset Boulevard.

Force of Arms is a movie that bounces between a war drama and a romance. Holden plays the hero with obstacles to overcome in both.

The war scenes (the battles) are well done though standard stuff. The romance scenes are … well, annoying at best. They don’t play well at all.

Nancy Olson as Lt. Eleanor MacKay and William Holden as Sgt. Joe 'Pete' Peterson.

They are weak primarily because Olson’s character, Lt. Eleanor MacKay, is weak and Olson is forced to play most of her scenes with a hang dog look or the look of someone on an interminable crying jag. You really just want her to shut up and go away. In the final scenes in particular her faced seemed etched in granite with the look of emotional devastation.

By contrast, in Sunset Boulevard she plays a character with both strength and determination, for the most part. Force of Arms doesn’t grant her this.

William Holden, on the other hand, is William Holden and essentially carries the movie. His presence is probably why the movie doesn’t come off as being awful; his performance tempers things making it at least somewhat palatable. Although it should also be said he, too, is forced to play a character that love turns into an emotional basket case.

Scene from Force of Arms (1951).

I think part of the movie’s intent was to show how war disrupts romance and life plans but what results is a movie that seems to be about how love makes people idiots and makes the horrors of war even worse.

As I write this and think of the movie, the more inclined I am to contradict what I began saying about the move: it is bad. It’s not bad in the unwatchable sense but it is in the wasted potential and in the fact that it ends up being nothing more than time wasted.

It is, however, visually good. The war scenes work well mixing scenes shot for the film with documentary footage and everything is well staged. It looks good in black and white with very nice cinematography by Ted McCord.

But in the end it winds up as wasted effort. It is an uninspired film rooted in a bland story.

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Starring William Holden, 1951′s Force of Arms stands out simply because it doesn’t stand out at all. It is singularly bland, being neither a bit good nor a bit bad but just a whole lot of just okay.

In that sense it is “bad,” though I think that term should be used more judiciously. Here, we have a movie with a number of good elements but when they come together they don’t cohere into anything interesting. I suspect it is the kind of movie that was dreamt up to satisfy some studio goals but had no dramatic reason to be. So it feels uninspired.

And it didn’t help that just prior to seeing it I saw the movie’s two stars, William Holden and Nancy Olson, in another movie they made, the magnificent Sunset Boulevard.

Force of Arms is a movie that bounces between a war drama and a romance. Holden plays the hero with obstacles to overcome in both.

The war scenes (the battles) are well done though standard stuff. The romance scenes are … well, annoying at best. They don’t play well at all.

Nancy Olson as Lt. Eleanor MacKay and William Holden as Sgt. Joe 'Pete' Peterson.

They are weak primarily because Olson’s character, Lt. Eleanor MacKay, is weak and Olson is forced to play most of her scenes with a hang dog look or the look of someone on an interminable crying jag. You really just want her to shut up and go away. In the final scenes in particular her faced seemed etched in granite with the look of emotional devastation.

By contrast, in Sunset Boulevard she plays a character with both strength and determination, for the most part. Force of Arms doesn’t grant her this.

William Holden, on the other hand, is William Holden and essentially carries the movie. His presence is probably why the movie doesn’t come off as being awful; his performance tempers things making it at least somewhat palatable. Although it should also be said he, too, is forced to play a character that love turns into an emotional basket case.

Scene from Force of Arms (1951).

I think part of the movie’s intent was to show how war disrupts romance and life plans but what results is a movie that seems to be about how love makes people idiots and makes the horrors of war even worse.

As I write this and think of the movie, the more inclined I am to contradict what I began saying about the move: it is bad. It’s not bad in the unwatchable sense but it is in the wasted potential and in the fact that it ends up being nothing more than time wasted.

It is, however, visually good. The war scenes work well mixing scenes shot for the film with documentary footage and everything is well staged. It looks good in black and white with very nice cinematography by Ted McCord.

But in the end it winds up as wasted effort. It is an uninspired film rooted in a bland story.

It’s one of those movies that manages to be flawed but good at the same time. You like it, but you have reservations about liking it.

The Male Animal (1942)

Directed by Elliott Nugent

As much as I enjoyed 1942′s The Male Animal, I found it damned peculiar. Starring Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland, I was never quite sure as I watched it just what kind of movie it was, or was trying to be.

It’s called a romantic comedy; you might even say it borders on screwball. But although there are many comic situations and comedic performances, there is also serious tone running through the movie; one that is political — almost. It almost plays as if it was Oliver Stone trying to be funny.

The problem with that is nothing kills humour faster than politics.

Olivia de Havilland and Henry Fonda as Ellen and Tommy Turner.

What the movie really is, is satire. It’s target is the sexes, particularly men (as the title suggests). Thus it is social satire.

However, it works a political thread into the mix so there is also some political satire as well.

Henry Fonda plays an obtuse and mild-mannered professor (Tommy Hunter) at Midwestern University where three professors have recently been fired as suspected communists.

Unaware of the significance of what he is doing, Prof. Turner has told a student he plans to read a letter written by Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Saccho and Vanzetti fame) as an example of English composition.

The student publishes an inflammatory item in the student newspaper where he mentions this as an example of the kinds of professors the university needs, and Tommy is in trouble. He can either refuse to do what he has said (read the letter publicly) or lose his job.

Tommy passively (and infuriatingly) watches as he sees the disconnect between his cerebral approach to life and his wife's visceral needs.

In the meantime, his intellectual and passive approach to life has led him to ignore his wife, Ellen (Olivia de Havilland). Tommy’s troubles at the university coincide with troubles at home when an old flame of Ellen’s returns, Jack Carson as Joe Ferguson.

I’ve mentioned previously that I have problems seeing Henry Fonda in comic roles but in this case he is perfect for the kind of buttoned up man he is playing. Prof. Turner is infuriatingly persistent in his determination to intellectualize relationships and find explanations in theories.

Meanwhile, he is married to a woman (de Havilland) who is far more visceral than he is and is starved for attention that isn’t an intellectual argument. Carson’s Joe fits that role perfectly.

Written by Julius and Philip Epstein, based on a James Thurber play, the movie nicely plays the political and social (relationships) themes back and forth and together, satirizing both.

Tommy’s problems on the home front take over his attention; his letter reading decision takes a backseat as he is consumed with a jealousy he refuses to acknowledge. Relationships should be reasoned, he argues. That is the civilized approach — despite the evidence of what he feels and that is staring him in the face.

Prof. Tommy Turner and student Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson) get thoroughly drunk trying to figure out relationships.

It culminates in Tommy getting thoroughly drunk and finally admitting he needs to step forward as “the male animal” he is and set things right physically, viscerally, sans intellect.

Eventually he addresses the political dimension of his problems, facing off against a blustery Eugene Pallette as Ed Keller, head of the trustees that are bent on ridding the university of communists and anything else that doesn’t play into their worldview.

It’s a bit surprising this movie made it through to the screens. It came out roughly five years before the Hollywood blacklist was brought in so I imagine the atmosphere must have been a charged one, even though the movie’s release would have been in the early period of the communist frenzy (and attention would have been focused on World War II).

This is a brave and earnest little movie and while not the best it is still a pretty good comedy. Earnestness tends to denude movies and books of their emotional appeal but that isn’t the case here. If it suffers from anything it is that sense of peculiarity that exists in it, particularly in the first half. It feels as if it can’t make up its mind how serious or comic it wants to be.

But it is interesting in its way, partly for what it might have been and partly for the sight of good actors (Grant and Kerr) working with material that lacks cogency. They appear alternately stiff and bored.

Dream Wife (1953)

Directed by Sidney Sheldon

This 1953 movie, Dream Wife, is confused at best. It has two big stars — Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr — who would later be brought together for 1957′s An Affair to Remember. It gives the impression of not knowing what to do with them but it’s a false impression.

It knows how to use its stars; it just doesn’t have anything to use them in. This is because apart from a superficially amusing idea — Cary Grant wants to marry; Deborah Kerr is too busy — it doesn’t know what it is about.

So we end up with a muddle.

Frankly, while he provides some very good moments, Cary Grant mostly looks frustrated by the realization he is in a muddle.

Betta St. John as Tarji, Cary Grant as Clemson Reade and Deborah Kerr as Effie -- all looking helpless in a confused script.

Kerr, on the other hand, appears to be doing the British “stiff upper lip” thing, moving through the film with aplomb despite the jumble.

It’s probably a more frustrating movie to today’s audience than to an audience of the early 1950s. It tackles relationships between men and women by what would then have been a role reversal. It isn’t a woman trying to get a man to finally marry; it’s the man trying to get married.

But his reasons are self-centred masculine ones. Grant’s Clemson Reade is romantic because he wants a wife to care for him, clean his house and generally devote her entire life to his wants and needs.

Kerr, unfortunately, is more practical and business-like and, most importantly, a feminist. She has no intention of devoting her life to caring for “her man.” She makes repeated references to women in history and how she, and all women, are free.

In response, Grant finds a princess from another country who has been raised for just one thing: caring for the man she marries. Her life has no meaning beyond that. Through a series of comic scenes, Grant discovers marrying such a woman (from a foreign land with different customs) is not so easy. And a woman with the devotion he wants isn’t quite the wonderful thing it seems.

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in a mistaken identity moment, Grant looking stiff and awkward, Kerr looking as if she's just realzed what a mess she is in.

And on it goes. The movie would have been a surprisingly feminist one had it continued along the line it heads down. But it trips up and becomes disappointingly anti-feminist when Grant and Kerr begin to reconcile and Kerr realizes that she does want to devote herself to a man. It just has to be the right man. In this case, that man is Grant.

This is one of those films that unwittingly ventures into social and cultural politics and, because it does and because it is unaware of this, creates confusion as it starts going one way then changes direction to reflect the attitudes of the period.

It’s just too in love with its one joke — Cary Grant trying to get married within a context of different cultures colliding — and never thinks anything through.

It’s just a muddle.

Directed by Sidney Sheldon

This 1953 movie, Dream Wife, is confused at best. It has two big stars — Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr — who would later be brought together for 1957′s An Affair to Remember. It gives the impression of not knowing what to do with them but it’s a false impression.

It knows how to use its stars; it just doesn’t have anything to use them in. This is because apart from a superficially amusing idea — Cary Grant wants to marry; Deborah Kerr is too busy — it doesn’t know what it is about.

So we end up with a muddle.

Frankly, while he provides some very good moments, Cary Grant mostly looks frustrated by the realization he is in a muddle.

Betta St. John as Tarji, Cary Grant as Clemson Reade and Deborah Kerr as Effie -- all looking helpless in a confused script.

Kerr, on the other hand, appears to be doing the British “stiff upper lip” thing, moving through the film with aplomb despite the jumble.

It’s probably a more frustrating movie to today’s audience than to an audience of the early 1950s. It tackles relationships between men and women by what would then have been a role reversal. It isn’t a woman trying to get a man to finally marry; it’s the man trying to get married.

But his reasons are self-centred masculine ones. Grant’s Clemson Reade is romantic because he wants a wife to care for him, clean his house and generally devote her entire life to his wants and needs.

Kerr, unfortunately, is more practical and business-like and, most importantly, a feminist. She has no intention of devoting her life to caring for “her man.” She makes repeated references to women in history and how she, and all women, are free.

In response, Grant finds a princess from another country who has been raised for just one thing: caring for the man she marries. Her life has no meaning beyond that. Through a series of comic scenes, Grant discovers marrying such a woman (from a foreign land with different customs) is not so easy. And a woman with the devotion he wants isn’t quite the wonderful thing it seems.

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in a mistaken identity moment, Grant looking stiff and awkward, Kerr looking as if she's just realzed what a mess she is in.

And on it goes. The movie would have been a surprisingly feminist one had it continued along the line it heads down. But it trips up and becomes disappointingly anti-feminist when Grant and Kerr begin to reconcile and Kerr realizes that she does want to devote herself to a man. It just has to be the right man. In this case, that man is Grant.

This is one of those films that unwittingly ventures into social and cultural politics and, because it does and because it is unaware of this, creates confusion as it starts going one way then changes direction to reflect the attitudes of the period.

It’s just too in love with its one joke — Cary Grant trying to get married within a context of different cultures colliding –  and never thinks anything through.

It’s just a muddle.

Nora (Myrna Loy) shows Nick (William Powell) she has picked up a few tricks of the trade from him.

Romances are usually about the obstacles a couple goes through in order to be together and they end with the pair finally uniting with the implication they will now be happy. United, they will live “happily ever after.”

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies show us the couple united and what life is like now that they are.

Together and happy, life is comedy. The movies aren’t romances; that part of their story has played out. (We never are shown this. The movies start after that has happened.)

The appeal of Nick and Nora is that they are united – they’re married – and they are living that happy life implied by the endings of romances. This is something audiences rarely see, certainly not seen so well articulated and charming.

The murder mystery element of the movies is key but only as an engine to allow their happy life to play out. It provides an engine to move the story forward and to provide a context within which we can see Nick and Nora behave as a happy couple.

The movies work individually but when seen as a series and in the order in which they came out they also show us their happy life evolve over time. And the way it evolves is telling. Specifics change. They look a bit older; they have a baby; the baby becomes a child … and so on.

But their relationship and what characterizes it doesn’t change. The essence of Nick and Nora as a couple remains the same.

The comedy is a mix of three elements, the ratios of which alter to varying degrees from film to film. It combines wit, slapstick and screwball/farce. The wit dominates throughout, though the other two elements are stronger in the later films.

The significance of the wit (apart from being fun to hear and see so well executed) is that it gives us Nick and Nora as equals, even in the later films when Loy’s Nora starts being presented as more of a sidekick to Nick than a partner.

The slapstick and farce elements, apart from providing some variation in the humour, allows the movies to keep the pair in check, especially Nick. He has to be clever but, whenever he starts to appear a little too clever and maybe not “a regular guy,” it’s slapstick that steps in to put him back in place (and in some cases, keep Nora in place).

Nick and Nora (William Powell and Myrna Loy).

Over a period of 13 years, William Powell and Myrna Loy had a wonderful run with their series of Thin Man movies. In all, there were six.

Although “the thin man” in the original movie, and the Dashiell Hammett novel that was the springboard for the movies, referred to a mysterious character, Clyde Wynant, (who doesn’t even appear in the original novel as I recall), in the movies “the thin man” came to refer to Nick Charles, William Powell’s character.

As movie series go, The Thin Man proved to be one of the most successful ever. And the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy worked so well that not only did they make six movies as Nick and Nora Charles, they made eight others together for a total of fourteen movies. But it is as the Charles’s in these Thin Man movies, where they are living the “happily ever after” life, that they are known best and most fondly for.

The Thin Man Series:

• The Thin Man (1934)
• After the Thin Man (1936)
• Another Thin Man (1939)
• Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
• The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
• Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Nick and Nora at play.

Nora (Myrna Loy) shows Nick (William Powell) she has picked up a few tricks of the trade from him.

The series of Thin Man movies answers the question, “What does happily ever after look like?”

Romances are usually about the obstacles a couple goes through in order to be together and they end with the pair finally uniting with the implication they will now be happy. United, they will live “happily ever after.”

William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies show us the couple united and what life is like now that they are.

Together and happy, life is comedy. The movies aren’t romances; that part of their story has played out. (We never are shown this. The movies start after that has happened.)

The appeal of Nick and Nora is that they are united – they’re married – and they are living that happy life implied by the endings of romances. This is something audiences rarely see, certainly not seen so well articulated and charming.

The murder mystery element of the movies is key but only as an engine to allow their happy life to play out. It provides an engine to move the story forward and to provide a context within which we can see Nick and Nora behave as a happy couple.

The movies work individually but when seen as a series and in the order in which they came out they also show us their happy life evolve over time. And the way it evolves is telling. Specifics change. They look a bit older; they have a baby; the baby becomes a child … and so on.

But their relationship and what characterizes it doesn’t change. The essence of Nick and Nora as a couple remains the same.

The comedy is a mix of three elements, the ratios of which alter to varying degrees from film to film. It combines wit, slapstick and screwball/farce. The wit dominates throughout, though the other two elements are stronger in the later films.

The significance of the wit (apart from being fun to hear and see so well executed) is that it gives us Nick and Nora as equals, even in the later films when Loy’s Nora starts being presented as more of a sidekick to Nick than a partner.

The slapstick and farce elements, apart from providing some variation in the humour, allows the movies to keep the pair in check, especially Nick. He has to be clever but, whenever he starts to appear a little too clever and maybe not “a regular guy,” it’s slapstick that steps in to put him back in place (and in some cases, keep Nora in place).

Nick and Nora (William Powell and Myrna Loy).

Over a period of 13 years, William Powell and Myrna Loy had a wonderful run with their series of Thin Man movies. In all, there were six.

Although “the thin man” in the original movie, and the Dashiell Hammett novel that was the springboard for the movies, referred to a mysterious character, Clyde Wynant, (who doesn’t even appear in the original novel as I recall), in the movies “the thin man” came to refer to Nick Charles, William Powell’s character.

As movie series go, The Thin Man proved to be one of the most successful ever. And the team of William Powell and Myrna Loy worked so well that not only did they make six movies as Nick and Nora Charles, they made eight others together for a total of fourteen movies. But it is as the Charles’s in these Thin Man movies, where they are living the “happily ever after” life, that they are known best and most fondly for.

The Thin Man Series:

• The Thin Man (1934)
• After the Thin Man (1936)
• Another Thin Man (1939)
• Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
• The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
• Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Nick and Nora at play.

Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe (John Wayne and Geraldine Page).

Never one to be accused of political correctness, John Wayne’s films involving love often co-starred Maureen O’Hara, feisty but ultimately submissive.

Yet Wayne was in quite a few romantic movies and often they were very good.

In many, however, the romance wasn’t quite what we would consider our kind of romance.

Some just seem plain wrong. (See, for example, 1963′s McLintock!)

Many of these co-starred a feisty Maureen O’Hara in a contentious relationship that ended in slapstick battling, O’Hara coming out on the short end as the submissive woman.

The best of those is The Quiet Man, John Ford’s gem from 1952. It’s one of those movies you watch thinking, “That’s all wrong,” yet you love the film despite its questionable portrayal of relationships.

However, of all the John Wayne movies that were romances or involved romance as a major element, I think Hondo from 1953 is the clear winner because it is the most realistic, the most understated and most true.

The likely reason, in part, is because in the short list I made below it is the only one that is a drama, not a comedy. Of course, it’s also because it’s a very good movie.

The list below is off the top of my head.

John Wayne and romance:

• A Lady Takes a Chance (1943)
• Without Reservations (1946)
• The Quiet Man (1952)
• Hondo (1953)
• Trouble Along the Way (1953)
• North to Alaska (1960)
• Donovan’s Reef (1963)
• McLintock! (1963)

Which ones have I missed? Let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Directed by Richard Thorpe

I laughed and I smiled. That’s about all a comedy laced with a romantic storyline can and should aspire to and Double Wedding achieves this and under conditions you would expect to douse the lightness.

Starring William Powell and Myrna Loy in one of their many pairings, while it was being shot Powell’s fiance at the time, Jean Harlow, died and production was shut down for a few weeks, according to Stuart Henderson. Powell returned to complete the movie and that, combined with the kind of performance he gives in the movie, tells us a good deal about the kind of man and performer William Powell was.

The free-spirited Charlie Lodge (William Powell) and the controlling Margit Agnew (Myrna Loy).

Powell is Charlie Lodge, a bohemian artist and aspiring movie director-producer who is preparing two young people for a film he wants to make (in a casual way). They are Irene Agnew (Florence Rice) and Waldo Beaver (John Beal).

The couple is engaged less because they are in love (which they are) and more (in fact, mainly) because Irene’s sister, Margit (Myrna Loy) has decided they will be and has planned it.

In fact, Margit decides everything for them from food to clothes to … well, everything. And neither Irene nor Waldo has the backbone to stand up to her. Waldo is particularly submissive: so much so, Irene feels compelled to reject him because he hasn’t the will to fight for her.

He lacks “yumph,” as the movie would have it.

Then there is Margit. She is the complete opposite of Charlie and so, as happens in the movies, they are destined to be together. But they must first sail through some rough waters! And that is where the humour lies.

Irene Agnew (Florence Rice) gets an acting lesson from Charlie.

Both Powell and Loy play characters that are considerably different from what we generally associate with them.

Loy is cool and distant and, with her porcelain features, delivers a very convincing performance as a woman determined to control everything and everyone.

However, what really struck me was Powell as Charlie. While still retaining that sense of “class” we normally associate with him, he is both convincing and seemingly inspired as a free-spirited character. I say seemingly because of the circumstances surrounding the film — Harlow’s illness and death.

It is initially a bit bizarre seeing Powell dressed and acting in this goofy and free manner but he soon pulls you in and makes you believe. There is also, to a degree, something of My Man Godfrey in his role here in that he must show a comparatively well-to-do family how to live because they are so far off the mark. (Godfrey would be released the next year, in 1938.)

This is a screwball comedy, and successful one, though it’s ending is a bit surprising as it devolves into slapstick — funny, but a bit puzzling and with a feeling of incongruity taken with most of the film. I can’t help wondering if this was one of the final scenes shot, after Powell had returned following the tragic news of Harlow, because the end minimizes his part — at least the speaking element — and focuses on Loy’s character to carry the scenes.

Regardless, I enjoyed Double Wedding. It’s a fun and funny screwball comedy and well worth seeing.

Other Loy and Powell movies:

• Evelyn Prentice (1934) (Loy & Powell Collection)
• I Love You Again (1940) (Loy & Powell Collection)
• Love Crazy (1941) (Loy & Powell Collection)
• The Thin Man (1934) (Complete Thin Man Collection)

The Lady Eve (1941)

Directed by Preston Sturges

For the life of me, I have a hard time even conceiving of Henry Fonda in a comedy even though I know he has been in many (such Rings On Her Fingers, Mister Roberts and The Cheyenne Social Club).

Even if I can get a hold on the idea of Hank Fonda in a comedy … a Preston Sturges comedy? With all the physicality that entails? The dialogue, sure; but the pratfalls? Henry Fonda?

So whenever I watch The Lady Eve, I always have this little mental hurdle I have to get past.

Yet there he is in one of the gems of Hollywood cinema, an almost perfect screwball comedy. In fact, the year 1941 could be considered the Preston Sturges’ year because he didn’t just make The Lady Eve, he also made Sullivan’s Travels, not simply two good comedies but two of the best comedies ever made and classics of screwball.

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda following one of many Fonda pratfalls.

A lot of different elements come together in the unique recipe of a Sturges comedy. There is witty dialogue and there is slapstick. There is a certain social awareness (including commentary) and there is romance, to varying degrees.

In the introduction to the movie on the Criterion edition, Peter Bogdanovich gives an off-the-cuff definition of screwball and makes the interesting observation that it is farce but people aren’t interested in farce until it’s called screwball.

In other words, screwball is synonymous with farce. I think that’s true to a large extent.

Fonda plays Charles Pike, son of a beer magnate and heir to a huge fortune. He is the gullible innocent, a head-in-the-clouds scientist almost exclusively interested in snakes. He’s very similar to the Cary Grant character of Dr. David Huxley in Bringing Up Baby.

Charles being seduced and made helpless by Jane and her charms.

Returning from a scientific expedition to the jungles of South America, he boards a cruise ship where he is spotted by Jean (Barbara Stanwyck), part of team of grifters who see Charles as the perfect mark. Her father is ‘Colonel’ Harrington (Charles Coburn) who famously scolds his daughter with, “Don’t be vulgar, Jane. Let us be crooked, but never common.”

This Sturges comedy has two key parts – a first and second half. There is a con in each, both involving Jane and Charles, the second involving the tried and true comedy device of confused identities.

In the first half, Jane works a con on Charles but the two fall in love. Then Charles discovers the con and utterly rejects her. Angered, Jane works another con on him – this time, it’s not about the money. It’s about revenge.

As an audience we are never confused about identities but the other characters, especially Henry Fonda’s Charles, are. There is one exception, however.

William Demarest as a suspicious Muggsy is not at all happy with what he is seeing.

William Demarest is Charles’ long-standing and long-suffering father figure stand-in, valet and bodyguard, with the common sense everyone else in the movie is lacking. In that sense, he is us, the audience, and in true Demarest style blusters and fumes with his frustration over how dim-witted everyone else seems to be. How could it be they don’t see it?

Well, it wouldn’t be much of a comedy if they did. But Demarest’s character is a key, for me, because he expresses the same frustration I feel watching The Lady Eve. For me, Charles is just too obtuse. He’s also too prissy. And the problem with that for me is it makes the romance aspect of the film lose some credibility.

It’s just personal taste, but I really need Fonda’s Charles to have some qualities that make him a bit more likable. He is such an innocent he comes across as a complete bonehead and I can’t help thinking that once the glow of the romance wears off, Stanwyck’s Jane will wake up some morning and say to herself, “Good grief. I’m married to an idiot.”

Charles listens as his new bride rhymes off the rather lengthy list of her previous lovers.

Having said that, however, Fonda does work the comedy extremely well. For the role, he is spot on.

My favourite scene is the relatively lengthy shot where Jane talks, seducing Charles as she twirls his hair in her fingers, and Charles sits beside her on the floor with a look of a smitten simpleton who is utterly powerless.

It’s a funny and pivotal scene because we see Charles being wholly overwhelmed by her spell and, more importantly, Stanwyck’s character Jane change. It is in this scene Stanwyck deftly moves Jane from woman working a con to woman falling in love.

Stanwyck is masteful as seductive con working her magic on simple Charles and nicely manages her transitions from swindler to woman in love to woman scorned to woman in love again. In a career highlighted by many great performances, this has to be one of her best.

Despite what I’ve said, Fonda is also about as perfect as it gets in his role. I don’t know if my problems with him are his character being too clueless, my image of Fonda as dramatic actor hobbling my perceptions or if it’s something else. I can’t help wondering how I would have felt about the character had someone like a Joel McCrae been in the role. Fonda is the straight man in the movie and he plays it with dead on precision.

This is rightly considered a great comedy. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve watched it. As writer-director, this is Preston Sturges at the height of his abilities and one of his best — some feel it is his best.

It’s difficult to disagree.