The Lady Eve (#103)

$25.99
Type: New Blu-Ray

Barbara Stanwyck sizzles, Henry Fonda bumbles, and Preston Sturges runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and swoonworthy romance. Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck’s conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda’s nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts—and she is determined to win it all. One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote and directed as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling humor with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2001 featuring film scholar Marian Keane
  • Introduction from 2001 by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
  • New conversation among writer-director Preston Sturges’s biographer and son Tom Sturges; Bogdanovich; filmmakers James L. Brooks and Ron Shelton; and critics Susan King, Leonard Maltin, and Kenneth Turan
  • New video essay by film critic David Cairns
  • Costume designs by Edith Head
  • Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1942 featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland
  • Audio recording from 2013 of “Up the Amazon,” a song from an unproduced stage musical based on the film
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1946 profile of Preston Sturges from Life magazine
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