Preston Sturges film The Lady Eve presents a love story in terms of recurrence and resolution. The first scene begins with a medium shot of the lovers usual meeting place on deck, where a cheerful and whistling Charles (Hopsie) paces up and down waiting for Jean to appear. The camera focuses on Charles pacing and whistling while diagetic sound is heard from kids playing on the deck and a bell ringing in the background. There is a change of focus when two men walk right in front of Charles while he is pacing back and forth.
Muggsy has finally obtained proof that the Harringtons are card sharks and while the camera still focusing in on Charles, he approaches with the purser, who carries an 8 x 10 envelope in his hand. As the purser decisively tells Charles to look at the contents, there is a medium close-up of Charles and the purser. The camera zooms in, there is ominous music playing in the background and then a close-up of a candid photograph showing Jean, her father, and Gerald descending a boat’s gangplank – it identifies the Harringtons as crooks with multiple aliases: “‘Handsome Harry’ Harrington, his daughter Jean and third character known as Gerald.
Professional card sharks; also bunko, oil wells, gold mines, and occasionally green goods. The scene fades into Charles concerned face with diagetic sound in the background. The cheerless music gets louder and louder as a medium close-up of Charles face ends with him looking at the picture one more time and feeling hurt, puts the picture inside the envelope. When Charles learns her true identity from his protective bodyguard, he reacts with miserable distress. The camera follows him as he strides stoically to the bar and orders a stiff drink in a general shot.
The background music is now very ominous and slow. Jean arrives from the left of him in the ship’s bar; the camera goes into a medium shot of Jean and Charles at the bar. She is wondering why he looks so worried and crestfallen, and guesses that it’s because he is “falling in love with a girl in the middle of an ocean. ” Truthful for once in her life, she admits her authentic love for him and her mistakes and puts her left arm around his shoulders. Midstream, she realizes that he’s found out about her.
The scene of Charles rejecting Jean is shot with a medium shot of both of them at the bar. After he shows her the picture the music stops; she gently explains the truth about herself, with tears forming in her eyes. While she is confessing to Charles setting right his illusions of her innocence, she is looking at him and he is looking away with his eyes set downward. The camera goes into a close-up shot of Jean when she expresses her vulnerability about wanting him to love her more – before telling him who she really was.
The medium close-up of Jean and Charles as the music starts again indicates the rejection Jean must accept. Not able to trust her any longer and unable to forgive her, a grim Charles doesn’t appreciate her sensitivity and sincerity. He refuses to listen to her explanation and is unable to see the love behind her deception. He doesnt look at her once when she is trying to explain herself; when she looks away and he finally looks at her they still dont have their eyes meet. He is concerned only with bolstering up his own damaged pride.
Lying, he tells her that he knew the truth about her from almost the beginning, and then played her for the sucker and dumped her. Jean looks up at him now and he looks away once again. She is utterly astonished and as she is getting up with tears in her eyes the camera moves to a medium shot of her and Charles and then says: “You mean you were playing me for a sucker? I don’t believe it. But if you were, if you were just trying to make me feel cheap and hurt me, you succeeded handsomely.
You ought to be very proud of yourself, Mr. Pike, very proud of yourself! ” Jean is determined to avenge her broken heart and get even with the man who distrusted and rejected her. Scene 2: Eve and Charles are on a speeding train headed for their honeymoon. The train barrels forward in the night from the right of the screen to the left; toward the camera signifying that something isnt right. The angle of the camera is from the ground at the wheels of the train making the train appear larger. There is a very loud whistle from the train at the start of this scene.
The scene is very dark and the trains loud noise is heard while Charles is in the train’s interior, in his bathrobe and pajamas – getting a drink of water. He then knocks on the door of their “cozy” compartment and the noise of the train gets softer. The trains noise is more subtle when Charles goes inside where Eve, dressed in her sheer negligee and looking at him as he enters is sitting on a chair facing to the left on the screen. There is no music in the background just soft noise from the train.
A piece of luggage tumbles onto Charles head from above, and she comforts and pets his head as the camera moves into a medium shot and they sit on their bed with Eve on the right side of Charles. She suddenly starts laughing hysterically and takes his arm into her right hand and holds his hand, recalling “that other time” when she eloped at the age of sixteen and traveled third class with a young stable boy named Angus – but the boy was “no one of the slightest importance. ” The camera is still in a medium shot.
Her preposterous story is interrupted by a close-up of lightning strikes and flashes and exterior shots of the train as it roars and whistles loudly through a thunderstorm, signifying how upset and overwhelmed Charles feels. The train is still moving from right to left instead of left to right across the screen and there is loud noise and the music starts up indicating fury and anger. The camera moves with Charles as he paces silently and contemplatively in their compartment in front of Eve. She is lying down on the bed watching him pace back and forth in front of her.
The camera goes into a medium shot and the music turns into soft mellow music when he stops and sits on the bed after deciding to swallow his pride and maintain his composure. In noble fashion but with clenched teeth, he forgives her (with “understanding and sweet forgiveness”- the camera goes to a close-up of Charles face and back to a medium shot of Jean and his side view on the bed) for her past youthful indiscretions. Now, let us smile and be as we were,” he says and the camera moves into a close-up of Charles as he smiles with a fake smile at her.
The close-up of Charles is changed to a medium shot of both of them on the bed and because she is pleased by his decision, she puts her arm around him and the camera is steady on them hugging. She supportively says: “I knew you’d be that way. I knew it the first moment I saw you standing beside me – I knew you’d be both husband and father to me, I knew I could trust and confide in you. I suppose that’s why I fell in love with you. ” A medium shot of Eve resumes to telling an amorous Charles about other previous partners signifying rejection, leaving no stone unturned to cause him to become disillusioned with her.
She decides to reveal more of the increasingly sordid, lurid details of her nymphomaniacal past as she flaunts her promiscuousness. She casually assaults and psychologically punishes him again with another tale about Herman: “I wonder if now would be the time to tell you about – Herman? ” Charles gasps. Her words are drowned out by another exterior shot – the timely roar of the train entering a tunnel [an obvious sexual clich], torrential rains, train whistles, and a close-up of a sign reading: “PULL IN YOUR HEAD – We’re Coming to a TUNNEL.
The perturbing music starts getting louder after the train goes through the tunnel. Further sequences are displayed through cuts and medium shots of montages, switching back and forth between exterior and interior shots, with the revelation of other names from her insatiable past including Vernon (“Vernon was Herman’s friend”). She cleverly and convincingly reveals previous elopements and amours. The train whistles and roars after Charles’ reaction: “What a friend! ” And then there was Cecil: “It’s pronounced Ce-cil.
There is a medium shot from outside the train through the window of them arguing. The train’s whistle sounds again which signifies recurrence, and they continue to battle together under the roar of the engine. Even more partners include Hubert and Herbert (“They were John’s twin cousins”) – and to finish the list there is John. The trains roars and whistling start to get softer and the scene is cut to the trains small headlight in the darkness coming towards the camera from the right side of the screen all signifying a change in the mood with some.
Utterly dazed, disgusted, and disillusioned by all her experiences and driven jealously mad, pajama-clad Charles (with an overcoat and hat) gets off the train as it slows at the next stop. He hastily escapes from their nuptial room; there is a full shot of Charles as he tosses his suitcases from the train. The camera moves with him as he stumbles off, (the pan of the camera is from the right to the left), slipping and slowly falling down in the mud – another ignominious, humiliating fall onto his back. In the next dark scene one leg is left extended up into the air.
Eve’s plan succeeds and she is vindicated, as the camera cuts to her in a medium shot as she sits victoriously at the train window to watch Charles and draw down the shade, she is neither laughing nor triumphant looking over her shoulder, but inexplicably forlorn, defeated and ruined herself. The scene fades out from her sitting at the window into the next one. Scene 3: The mise-en-scene sets the next scene of Charles on the very right side of the screen sitting down on the edge of a chair, and the other characters spread out in the scene.
There is a cut to Eve sitting on the very right side of the couch with her father to the right of her. Now Eve has a perfect opportunity to seek a large settlement from Pike’s lawyers, in exchange for giving Charles a divorce, financial gain that excites Colonel Harrington – similar to a ‘royal flush’: The camera moves into a medium shot of Eve and her father, “For once that we have a chance to make some honest money… ” Eve/Jean replies: “Oh, tell ’em to go peel an eel. ” But she realizes, once again, with a change of heart that she has hurt her chances with Charles and that she still loves him and wants to take him back.
When Charles’ father phones her about the settlement from his office (surrounded by a large contingent of advisors in front of a Pike’s Ale sign), a medium shot of her rushing to the phone while her father is still speaking, she nobly proposes going through with the divorce free of charge without alimony. However, as a medium close-up is shot of her, she asks for only one thing – for Charles to come, in person, and speak with her in New York when he seeks a divorce: “I want to see him first and I want him to ask me to be free. That’s all.
No money, no nothing…. (The camera moves quickly to her father pouring a drink and almost spilling because of what she is saying and then back to her,) theres something I want to say to him before we part. ” She feels very remorse. She is told that Charles refuses (medium shot of Charles yelling at his father that he doesnt want to talk to her after their honeymoon experience). He rejects her once more; which is a sign of recurrence and of rejection throughout the movie.
The scene fades out to Eve/Jean lying on the couch waiting by the phone for Mr. Pike to call. The phone rings, there is a horn honking, she answers the phone with Mr. Pike on the other line telling her Charles is unavailable anyway to dissolve their marriage (close up of Eve/Jean) – he’s gone to say goodbye to his mother. He is scheduled to leave town, sailing that evening on the S. S. Southern Queen from Manhattan. She looks at her watch, says no! quietly and the scene ends with diagetic sound of another honk of a horn from outside with a fade out of her worried face looking out into the camera.
So Lady Eve and Charles remain bound to each other in a marriage of miserable despair. Scene 4: The final scene fades into the large boat whistling loudly which is a recurrence throughout the film and is also now moving from the left to the right of the screen. Then the scene seques into another shipboard meeting; where Charles is seen roaming the ship in a trance. He is walking up the stairs, pleasant music starts playing (non-diagetic) and the camera moves with him from the left to the right up the stairs and into the same dining room where Jean and him met the first time.
Reverting to her former self as Jean Harrington, she takes the same steamship, and suggesting an echo effect she once again ‘accidentally’ trips him (no music) as he walks through the smoking room just as she did earlier when they first met. He falls; she gets up having the camera on her, and says Why Hopsie in a pleased voice. The camera cuts to him on the ground, then back to her again and back again to Hopsie. A mise-en-scene shows that he rediscovers his cardsharp playing companions – this time; he is ecstatic about being reunited with both Jean and her father.
He gets up; the music starts again, he ardently embraces and passionately kisses her, people are ringing their glasses and laughing in the background, which is diagetic sound. He orders champagne for the Colonel, but is determined not to let Jean go this time. The camera follows them as they hurry from the smoking room toward her deck and cabin stateroom. He guides her down many flights of staircases toward her room where they will presumably consummate their passions. Both are regretful and realize they have learned something about love.
By her being guided by Charles this time signifies recurrence and now resolution. They are reunited in a happy, romantic ending to their farcical affair involving conflict, deceitfulness, and confusion. There is a medium close-up of the two passionately kissing in front of her cabin. The camera then zooms in on them embracing each other showing how much they love and care for each other. Giving up her malicious heartlessness and manipulative cunning, Jean has succumbed to love her Prince Charming.
After rejecting Jean/Lady Eve twice on the grounds of immorality, a lovesick and innocent Hopsie thinks he has luckily met Jean Harrington again rather than Lady Eve Sidwich – he momentarily tries to protest that he shouldn’t be in her cabin with her since he is married. He explains, Because Im married. as the door is slowly closing and we cant see Hopsie anymore. She confesses to him that she is married also as the door is closing and we cant see her face. The door is almost closed when she says, So am I. The door is slammed and the lovers are together once again.
