Watch that Snake!

Tonight one of the best screwball comedies ever made is on TCM.

I have watched every screwball comedy classified from the AFI and other lists, and I know whereof I speak, having made the 'Golden Age of Hollywood' something of a passion.

One of my bucket-list dreams is attending the TCM Film Festival in LA some day soon.

Not only does The Lady Eve star Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, but it features a solid cast of character actors who, if you don't recognize the names here, you probably will when you see their faces: Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, and William Demarest. All they needed was Edward Everett Horton to make my viewing complete (he was probably tied up in a Fred Astair-Ginger Rogers vehicle).

Directed by the brilliant Preston Sturges, the one-time white-hot director who burned out too quickly, (his best movies beside this one being Sullivan's Travels and The Palm Beach Story, two other must-sees),this 1941 film has Stanwyck doing what she does best - playing a smart woman several steps ahead of everyone else - in this case, she's a con artist who tries to hoodwink - and then of course falls for - wealthy Fonda, a slightly dim-witted, affable guy who is looked after by his 'right hand man' Demarest (Uncle Charlie for those of you who grew up watching My Three Sons).

Watch it for the witty repartee, the gorgeous gowns, and the old passage-liner crossings. They really don't make them like this any more, and more's the pity.