Screwball Romance in Baltimore
Classic Hollywood fans in Baltimore have three chances to see Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve, which screens this Saturday and next Monday and Wednesday at the Charles Theatre. A sophisticated comedy with a dash of slapstick, this comedic masterpiece stars Barbara Stanwyck as a glamorous con artist and Henry Fonda as the charmingly naïve millionaire she sets her sights on fleecing. Soon after meeting, the pair fall in love, but the budding romance is thrown into jeopardy when her conniving ways are revealed. Packed with sparkling dialogue and stellar performances, the film represents Hollywood screwball at its most effervescent, but as James Harvey argues in his liner notes for our release, its achievement is profound, marked by “the richness, completeness, and resonance by which we recognize something fully and seriously done, whether we can explain it or not.” Catch The Lady Eve this week, and check out a selection of intimate glimpses of Fonda, Stanwyck, and Sturges on set in this behind-the-scenes gallery.
