Director: Preston Sturges
Writer: Preston Sturges
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck & Henry Fonda
Year: 1941
Length: 94 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Colour: Black & White
As with the last film in this blog series (My Man Godfrey) this film has a superbly sparkling script. I’d never seen anything written or directed by Preston Sturges before, and I’m now very glad that I have. Scripts are not this good anymore (not much anyway, there are always exceptions, usually where the name Joss Whedon is concerned), intelligent, witty, a rare combination. Even in action films and scenes, the script tends to rely on yet another cry of ‘come on!’ or something similar. If you can’t find anything to write, don’t write anything at all. In the case of Preston Sturges, he has lots to write and does so with vim and verve!
Barbara Stanwyck plays Jean a con artist who along with her father and his friend, decide to con millionaire Charles (played by Henry Fonda) out of a load of money. However things take a different turn when she begins to fall in love with him. A relatively common set up by today’s standards but not in 1941 I imagine…
The cons in this film are marvellous, most notably a fantastic card game and sensational con in which Jean changes her make-up and accent in order to get Charles to fall in love with her again (but he thinks it’s a different person). We, the audience, are in on the cons from the word go which makes for a splendid viewing experience. Although there is pleasure in not knowing, which makes the sudden moment of realisation all the more worthwhile, in this it is just a delight to watch it all happen from an all knowing viewpoint.
A great script needs a great cast and boy does this film get one. Stanwyck and Fonda are great, as are Charles Coburn as Jean’s father and Eugene Pallette as Charles’ father, a similar role to one that he played a year earlier in My Man Godfrey. It is also a pleasure to see the butler played by Robert Grieg who also played the butler 11 years earlier in The Marx Brothers’ film Animal Crackers.
Very funny, very engaging.
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