A direct decedent of "Bringing Up Baby", Preston Sturges's comedy pits two Hollywood greats, Barbara Stanwyk and Henry Fonda, in a game of love dealt out in the cards. She is Jean, a fast talking card sharp; he is Charles, a snake-loving heir to a brewing fortune. What begins as a cruel con ends in love, but not without some major bumps along the way.
Stuck on a boat heading to New York Charles, recently returned from a year in the Amazon--a trek we hear about far more than necessary--must beat off the ladies with a stick until he literally trips over the beautiful and brash Jean. It's love at first sight. It has to be. In the same vein as "Baby" he is a simp of a scientist who is charming purely by being a naive nerd. He is no match for the cunning of our gold digging siren, but his ignorant charm wins her over as well--something not in the cards.
Despite the plights of her two associates, she decides to marry Charles after a night of slight of hand and gentle caresses of the face. A past like Jean's can't remain a secret for long, however, which leads to a very ugly end to their intended nuptials. But Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn, so they say, and a plot of revenge gets underway.
Stanwyk is perfect in her role. As much as she is seductive and gorgeous, she is also manipulative and cunning, able to play a man just as well as she plays poker. Drawing so many connections to Howard Hawks's screwball wonder would be rude, but there can be no denying the many flashes of Kate Hepburn in her performance. That isn't a bad thing (how could it be?), it's merely an observation.
As much as I like her, though, I couldn't find myself attracted to Fonda. Certainly no man is as big a fool as he is and his weak spine began to get annoying. A little bit of range would have been nice to break up the monotony of the love struck schoolboy in awe of the tough, female protagonist.
I also didn't accept the romance. I can overlook the head-over-heels infatuation they formed, as it is a romantic comedy and never strives for realism, but at the end of the day this guy was stuck in the jungle, surrounded only by men for a year. He was simply horny. One would think it would wear off after a while.
Moreover, the first act dragged and ending was superficial and obvious, though it confusingly seemed also to come out of nowhere. Suddenly the credits were rolling and I didn't feel the story had been resolved. It's a cute film and more than occasionally funny, but the potential was far greater than the outcome. The third act zips along and is a lot of fun, but it ends in an odd and unpleasant train ride which I didn't fully understand. Jean exacts her revenge, which we know will happen, but what she does really doesn't make a whole lot of sense and makes her seem far uglier than it probably intended to. In short, it was a nice, long setup with a dud of a punchline.
3/4
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