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Preston Sturges indeed should be proud for creating a rogue of a rowdy affair about battle of sexes entailing romantic reluctance and sexual dilemmas and the paradoxical idealism of true love examined as a romantic comedy ,within a sharp script which discovers the comic genius of HENRY Fonda ,but the limelight is stolen as always by BARBRA Stanwyck as JEAN and LADY Eve,without her it would be impossible to contemplate a movie so perfect in comic timing and an emotional harmony connotating a simple plot ,yet so profoundly rich in affect as to make present cinema look pathetic after 70 odd years of being created .
If this was the archetype of the hollywood romcom ,then i regret to say that Hollywood is in stone age today compared to the forties as this works at every dimension and all the human senses are satiated besides the sense of style and intellectual curiosity .
It does so by an impossibly ingenious plot in a delicious presentation where frothy comedy has already touched you so deeply in heart and mind that you accept the characters as bigger than life with conviction .
Henry Fonda is charles Pike a rather shy introverted billionaire and an eligible bachelor who indulges as an ophiologist in spare time and is looked after by a delightful guardian played by Demarest .
He boards a cruise ship after an Amazon river trip and immediately becomes the ogling focus of all female species abroad including Jean who is part of a triumvirate team of con artists and cardsharps headed by her father colonel Harrington played by a wry Charles Coburn ,as they set about to target and victimise the vulnerable billionaire with jean turning her wicked feminine charms on the vulnerable victim and the two leads start a whirlwind courtship where jean somewhere falls truly for pike and thus puts an end to her father's malicious plan to fleece the naive young man .
Unfortunately Pike discovers their true identity and in a rash encounter callously breaks Jean's heart who then decides to get even and sets about on an adventure as a disguised english aristocrat lady eve which is both about love and vengeance .
The superlative dialogue and the triumphant secretive directorial style of preston sturges is beyond comparison or analysis as he is beyond and above all others with a stupendous mixture of slapstick and subtle humour .
This is totally lacking in the cinema of today where you usually breed inadvertent contempt for half baked characters and dizzy dialogues .
This movie is set on a cruise liner and the Pike country estate within gorgeous indoors and outdoors and plays in a train and ship compartment but it is so naturally balanced within a graceful style that it becomes enormously spacious and widely arousable in every site with an enhanced vision with costumes that are the epitome of classic French vogue and haute couture .
A special mention for Henry Fonda as the stoic,naive but charming millionaire who had the courage to play the buffoon to gentlemanly perfection which can also be called comic genius and also to EUGENE PALETTE who plays his father as a victimised husband in a great performance .
A great screwball movie dedicated to the paradox of the lighter side of social discrimination and the delightfully essential sin committed by Adam and Eve in their hour of damndest glory ,this is a tribute to the golden age of American cinema .
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30 Nov. 2006 "Please retry" | — | 1 | £14.95 | £24.99 |
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Customer reviews
A troe 'classic' in every sense of the word. Love it. Love it. Love it.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 April 2021
One of my favorite movies from Hollywood's golden era, plus I love Barbara Stanwyck. Criterion wasn't able to find the kind of material that they were hoping for for their latest Blu-ray restoration, apparently they had to settle for fourth generation material, but the movie stills looks very good, I think.I wish Criterion would do more projects like this, to be honest. They used to do a lot of amazing titles, like Chaplin, Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, etc., but lately they seem to have shifted focus, which I don't understand. I know it probably cost a lot to restore old classics, but they also sell very well.Look at the success of Warner Archives in the US. Every month they put out truly amazing stuff.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 April 2021
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