Critics reviews

One of those precious films where only superlatives will do: a peak for Sturges, for Barbara Stanwyck, and for Old Hollywood, and an effortless example of how a good screwball comedy can offer a great deal more insight than most dramas.

Amongst boyish shyness and impeccable comic timing, Sturges created the quintessential screwball comedy: a genuine love story about a couple who not only seduce each other, but themselves, and who deserve the results of their desires.

It may be one of the best revenge movies ever made... Sturges expertly balances this sensuous, screwball comedy and the straight-up slapstick that further complements the sexiness.

The Lady Eve is a social charmer, a seductress, and a grifter. She's never painted as being sinister or of ill repute, however. On the contrary, she's insatiably affable, lovely, classy, and intelligent. We want to be her. Or we want to be with her, wrapped around her little finger. We identify with her in soul and spirit, even when she's cruel.

...A hilarious comedy of misunderstanding, and even at more than 70 years old, it seems as fresh and relevant today as ever... With its rapid-fire dialogue, fierce wit, and absurd flights of improbable circumstance, The Lady Eve shows Sturges working at the top of his game.

The film is certainly one of the finest screwball comedies ever made, existing, as some have observed, in a sort of medium ground between the unadulterated slapstick chaos of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938) and the more human-based aesthetic of Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth(1937). To put it another way: Sturges clearly loves his characters, but that doesn't prevent him from subjecting them to comic mayhem.