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GRIFTERS

Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was

The Lady Eve (1941)

This is one of those 1176 Best Films niche selections. For sure.

It is a Preston Sturges' screwball comedy with Barbara Stanwyk and Henry Fonda. It is probably the only Sturges in the 1176. It is not the the only screwball comedy but the others have Hepburn and Grant and the usual suspects.

There was probably a vote for the young Stanwyk in there and this one fell into the bucket. I can hear the wheels turning.

Screwball. In other words, an absurdity wrapped in unbelievablity held together with smart one liners and some good visual jokes as well as some clever acting. It is, admittedly, not my favorite genré.

I think that one of the reasons that this kind of thing doesn't go down very well in this house (I didn't mind it, the other one hated it) is that it is very heterosexual and, at bottom, man hating.

Fonda is an unlikely dupe. A handsome nerd. A rich boy herpetologist who is so smart about his field that he is totally dumb about love and life and we don't like to watch this kind of thing.

Stanwyk is a con-artist who falls for 'the big mugg' while trying to bilk him. She and her dad/partner can't help keeping the scam going then upping the nastiness of it just when he seems to be getting a little smarter about the situation.

A bitch who gets bitchier. That doesn't go down very well either.

Finally, what about the scam artist is so appealing? How can we believe that other than a quick fuck there will be anything to this?

Blah blah; already too much realism poured onto the soufflé flattens it

It is good to see William Demarest and Charles Coburn and some other dependable B-level actors carrying the plot from scene to scene.

There is a great animated cartoon title. The snake turns out to be the woman.

This is the kind of situation that breeds misogyny.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5. Maybe a 2 if I think about it too much longer.

Don't even ask my partner what he thinks. We can't give negatives.