Library Film Series Features The Lady Eve

A gorgeous and talented con artist sets her sights on a naive and vulnerable brewery heir. With the help of her father (and partner in crime), she woos him until he is putty in her hands. The only thing that doesn’t go according to her plan is what happens to her own heart: it softens to the gullible, good-hearted chump, and she falls in love. Her identity is revealed to him, and he spurns her. She sets out for revenge, but now she’s the naive one: she doesn’t expect her heart to warm to him again, but it does.

The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, is a classic screwball comedy that perfectly illustrates the tropes of the genre, making it just the right movie to kick off “A Screwball Summer,” our summer program that looks at the best of this classic style. Featuring fast dialogue, farcical plots, comedic tension between the sexes, and subverted gender roles, screwball comedies played fast and loose with the moral strictures of their day, and were an important critique of mid-century American morality and ethics.

Join us on Thursday, June 23, at 7 p.m., for this hilarious film. I will be leading a brief discussion after the movie, and, as always, there will be free theater popcorn and candy.