Just
about everyone on the interfilmwebs has been writing about
Barbara Stanwyck in honor of what would have been her 100th birthday on Monday (16 July). I don't know Stanwyck's work
as well as some, but she is in one of my favorite films, and arguably
Preston Sturges' best,
The Lady Eve (1941). In
Eve, she displays all of the qualities that those who love her love: strength, independence, smarts, and a palpable sensuality. Two scenes show her, and Sturges, at her, and his, best: one where she narrates the very wealthy and well-known Charles Pike's (Henry Fonda) entry into a dining room full of women ready to work their wiles on him, and another where she takes Charles' head into her lap and seduces him without showing any skin or initiating any contact below the neck. In the latter, Sturges uses a handheld mirror to establish a frame-within-the frame as Stanwyck's Jean Harrington "directs" the action in the dining room. Her "direction" ends when she sticks out her foot to accidentally-on-purpose get his attention and wins the day over her competitors. The second scene is proof positive that true sexiness is about more than just putting bodies on display. Indeed, in more ways than one this scene suggests that our primary erogenous zone is, in fact, our brains.
Originally posted on:
Short-Circuit Signs