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Charles Pike: You're certainly a funny girl for anybody to meet who's just been up the Amazon for a year.
Jean Harrington: Good thing you weren't up there two years.
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Steward: Breakfast, sir?
Charles: What'd you say?
Steward: I said, "Breakfast, sir?"
Charles: Two scotch and sodas with plain water.
Jean Harrington: Don't you take cream and sugar?
Charles: No, I always take it black.
[pause]
Charles: Say, what am I talking about?
Jean Harrington: That's what I was wondering.
Steward: How about a nice bicarbonate of soda with an egg in it? It does wonders!
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Jean Harrington: [while observing Charles Pike from her pocket mirror] Not good enough... I said they're not good enough for him. Every Jane in the room is giving him the thermometer and he feels they're just a waste of time. He's returning to his book, he's deeply immersed in it. He sees no one except - watch his head turn when that kid goes by. Won't do you any good, dear, he's a bookworm, but swing 'em anyway. Oh, now how about this one. How would you like that hanging on your Christmas tree? Oh you wouldn't? Well, what is your weakness, brother? Holy smoke, the dropped kerchief! That hasn't been used since Lily Langtry. You'll have to pick it up yourself, madam. It's a shame, but he doesn't care for the flesh. He'll never see it. Look at that girl over to his left. Look over to your left, bookworm. There's a girl pining for ya. A little further. Just a little further... There! Wasn't that worth looking for? See those nice store teeth all beaming at you. Oh, she recognizes you! She's up, she's down, she can't make up her mind. She's up again. She recognizes you! She's coming over to speak to you. The suspense is killing me. "Why, for heaven's sake, aren't you Fuzzy Oathammer I went to manual training school with in Louisville? Oh you're not? Well, you certainly look exactly like him, it's certainly a remarkable resemblance... But if you're not going to ask me to sit down, I suppose you're not going to ask me to sit down... I'm very sorry, I certainly hope I haven't caused you any embarrassment, you so and so." "I wonder if my tie's on straight. I certainly upset them, don't I? Now who else is after me?" Ah, the lady champion wrestler, wouldn't she make a houseful? Oh, you don't like her either. Well, what are you going to do about her? Oh, you just can't stand it anymore, you're leaving. These women don't give you a moment's peace, do they? Well, go ahead! Go sulk in your cabin. Go soak your head and see if I care!
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Charles Pike: A girl of sixteen is practically an idiot anyway, so I can't very well blame you for something that was practically done by somebody else.
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Gerald: I can't understand how the horse ran fifth!
Jean Harrington: There were only five horses in the race.
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Jean Harrington: You know Charles?
Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith: Oh, is he the tall backwards boy always toying with toads and things? Yes, I think I have seen him skulking about.
Jean Harrington: He's not backwards. He's a scientist.
Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith: Oh is that what it is? I knew he was, mm... peculiar.
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Charles Pike: I'm married.
Jean Harrington: But so am I, darling. So am I.
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Jean Harrington: I don't see why I have to do all the dirty work. There must be plenty of rich old dames waiting for you to push them around.
"Colonel" Harrington: You find them, I'll push them.
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Jean Harrington: You see Hopsi, you don't know very much about girls. The best ones aren't as good as you think they are and the bad ones aren't as bad. Not nearly as bad.
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Charles Pike: You ought to put handles on that skull. Maybe you could grow geraniums in it.
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Stewart: Good morning, sir. Fruit, cereal, bacon and egg, egg and sausage, sausage and hot cake, hot cake and ham, ham and egg, egg and bacon, bacon and...
Muggsy: Give me a spoonful of milk, a raw pigeon's egg, and four houseflies. If you can't catch any, I'll settle for a cockroach.
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Jean Harrington: I need him like the ax needs the turkey.
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Jean Harrington: What were you doing up the Amazon?
Charles Pike: Looking for snakes. I'm an ophiologist.
Jean Harrington: I thought you were in the beer business.
Charles Pike: Beer? *Ale!*
Jean Harrington: What's the difference?
Charles Pike: Between beer and ale?
Jean Harrington: Yes.
Charles Pike: My father'd burst a blood vessel if he heard you say that. There's a big difference. Ale's sort of fermented on the top or something, and beer's fermented on the bottom, or maybe it's the other way around. There's no similarity at all. You see, the trouble with being descended from a brewer, no matter how long ago he brewered, or whatever you call it, you're supposed to know all about something you don't give a hoot about.
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Charles Pike: Snakes are my life, in a way.
Jean Harrington: What a life!
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Jean Harrington: Boy, would I like to see you give some old harpie the three in one!
"Colonel" Harrington: Don't be vulgar, Jane. Let us be crooked, but never common.
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Charles Pike: What I am trying to say is: I'm not a poet, I'm an ophiologist.
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Steward: Six more Pike's Pale. Make it snappy.
Ship's Bartender: What are you trying to do, embarrass me? We're all out of Pike's Pale. Work 'em over to something else!
Steward,: They don't want nothing else. They want "the Ale that won for Yale." Rah, rah, rah.
Ship's Bartender: Well, tell 'em to go to Harvard.
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Jean Harrington: They say a moonlit deck is a woman's business office.
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Description
A conniving father and daughter meet up with the heir to a brewery fortune-a wealthy but naïve snake enthusiast-and attempt to bamboozle him at a cruise ship card table. Their plan is quickly abandoned when the daughter falls in love with their prey. But when the heir gets wise to her gold-digging ways, she must plot to re-conquer his heart. One of Sturges' most clever and beloved romantic comedies, The Lady Eve balances broad slapstick and sophisticated sexiness with perfect grace.
Amazon.com essential video
In 1941, Barbara Stanwyck was offered two screwball roles equally suited to her tart intelligence, deft comic timing, and undeniable sex appeal, and it's a photo finish as to which was funnier--showgirl-on-the-lam Sugarpuss O'Shea, the title character in Howard Hawks's Ball of Fire, or con artist Jean Harrington a.k.a. Lady Eve Sidwich, the delirious fulcrum for this classic Preston Sturges comedy. Under Sturges's typically antic microscope, the collision between the gold-digging Harrington and the very rich, very hapless brewery-heir-turned-herpetologist Charles Pike (a wonderfully callow, guileless Henry Fonda) yields ample opportunity for the writer-director to skewer issues of class and sex; as always, Sturges is bold in pushing the censors' envelope, capturing a palpable erotic heat between the canny Jean and the literally feverish Charlie, who, after a year up the Amazon, is instantly smitten by the mere sight of her shapely ankles (in hindsight, a precursor to her subsequent effect in Double Indemnity). To give away the plot machinations driving the farce would spoil the fun, beyond confirming impersonations, mixed signals, and misunderstandings as the turns in a consistently rollicking ride that makes good use of Charles Coburn and screwball character veterans Eugene Pallette, William Demarest, and Eric Blore. --Sam Sutherland
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