The Lady Eve (Blu-ray)

Barbara Stanwyck (Sorry, Wrong Number) sizzles, Henry Fonda (12 Angry Men) bumbles, and Preston Syurges (The Palm Beach Story) runs riot in one of the all-time great screwballs, a pitch-perfect blend of comic zing and woonworthy romance.

Aboard a cruise liner sailing up the coast of South America, Stanwyck’s conniving card sharp sets her sights on Fonda’s nerdy snake researcher, who happens to be the heir to a brewery fortune. But when the con artist falls for her mark, her grift becomes a game of hearts—and she is determined to win it all.

One in a string of matchless comedic marvels that Sturges wrote, directed, and produced as part of a dazzling 1940s run, this gender-flipped battle-of-wits farce is perhaps his most emotionally satisfying work, tempering its sparkling wit with a streak of tender poignancy supplied by the sensational Stanwyck at her peak.

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 2001 featuring film professor Marian Keane
• Introduction from 2001 by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
• Interview from 2020 with writer-director Preston Sturges’s biographe and son Tom Sturges and friends
• New video essay by film critic David Cairns
• Costume designs by Edith Head
• Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1942 featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Ray Milland
• Audio recording of “Up the Amazon,” a song from an unproduced stage musical based on the film
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1946 profile of Preston
• Sturges from LIFE magazine