Preston Sturges: Turning Drama into Laughs

In the 1940's, writer and director Preston Sturges made his name in Hollywood with a series of wild, but clever comedies. With the best comic actors, witty scripts, and silent age-style slapstick, Sturges created movies with a giddy comic momentum.

As the writer and director of Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story, he cast a trio of actresses who were best known for playing dramatic roles and encouraged them to cut loose. He directed Barbara Stanwyck, Veronica Lake and Mary Astor in some of their best performances.

The Lady Eve (1941)
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn

After seeing Barbara Stanwyck's performance in Remember the Night(1940) [for which he had written the script] , Preston Sturges promised his friend, "someday I'm going to write a real screwball comedy for you."* Stanwyck was skeptical; she was much more likely to be cast as a femme fatale than as a funny lady. However, Sturges came through with the script and he even got to direct, a position which allowed him to borrow Stanwyck from her studio.

The plot of The Lady Eve draws its roots from the story of Eve offering Adam the apple, though in this case the apple is dropped on his head. Stanwyck plays a con artist named Jean Harrington, who rips off rich travelers in cahoots with her father (Coburn). Fonda plays Charles Pike, a snake-obsessed ale company heir who is just back from a long research trip up the Amazon. From the first time he appears, he is obviously doomed to slip into Jean's clutches. He literally falls for her when she sticks out her leg and trips him in a cruise ship dining room. Many pratfalls, misunderstandings and disguised identities later, she ends up conning him for love instead of money.

Sturges knew that he was walking a thin line by putting so much slapstick into his movies, but in Eve, the physical humor actually enhances the clever script. Jean makes a wisecrack and Charles falls over a sofa; if one laugh doesn't work, the other will. The set of Eve was equally riotous, and after the production was over, Fonda said that Stanwyck was his favorite leading lady. Audiences also loved Stanwyck and Fonda together; the movie was one of Sturges' biggest critical and popular successes.