109. When The Lady Smiles &...

Lyrics

When the lady smiles, you know it drives me wild
Her lips are warm and resourceful
When her fingertips, go drawing circles in the night
Then the mood is soft and sensual, hu-u
And I love it, yeah I love it
It's the answer to all my dreams
Every time it feels like the earth is shakin'
It doesn't matter, a glass is fallin',
I hear it shatter, maybe it's raining,
faster and faster, shadow dancin',
together oh I, I'm a bettin' on the game of love
oh oh oh I, I'm bettin' that love is gonna come out
When the walls no longer shout, back at me
and I'm feelin' proud

When the lady smiles, she holds me in her hand
As a matter of fact, she could always let me down
But when the lady smiles, I can't resist her call
As a matter of fact, I don't resist at all
‘cos I'm walking on clouds and she is leadin' the way

My friends tell me, she's the beast inside your paradise
I guess you've heard it all before
A fallen angel, that has got you hypnotized
and that always needs some more, hu-u
and I love it, yeah I love it
She's done nothin' to mislead me
‘cos every time we meet, the earth is shakin'
It doesn't matter, a glass is fallin'
I hear it shatter , maybe it's rainin'
faster and faster, shadow dancin'
together oh I, I'm bettin' on the game of love
Oh oh oh I, I'm bettin' that love is gonna come out
When the walls no longer shout, back at me
and I'm feeling proud

When the lady smiles, she holds me in her hand
As a matter of fact, she could always let me down
But when the lady smiles, I can't resist her call
As a matter of fact, I don't resist at all
‘cos we're walkin' on clouds and she is leadin' the way

Oh no, oh no, oh nooooo......

Founded in 1961, Golden Earring is the oldest Dutch rock group still in existence. Songs such as When The Lady Smiles show why they have such longevity. They may not be groundbreaking, but they know very well how to make simply good, entertaining songs. They have many more like this one. The same can be said about the movie I linked it too, although that is much better, and much more entertaining, than the song.

The Movie: The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)

The Lady Eve is among Roger Ebert's Great Movies. I would not go quite that far, but it is certainly wonderful. It's the first film of Preston Sturges, one of the most lauded 'screwball' directors of classic Hollywood, I've seen, and I now certainly hope to see more of his work. Especially because after seeing this film many film folks on Twitter started suddenly discussing Sturges' Hail The Conquering Hero, mostly in the context of an apparently great static long take in that film. That did not surprise me. From The Lady Eve it is apparent that Sturges loves static long takes, and knows how to use them well. The best one discussed by Ebert in his review. It occurs when the confident Jean (Barbara Stanwyck) playfully caresses the perplexed Charles' (Henry Fonda) hair (Henry Fonda). 

The best scene in the movie occurs a bit before that though, and I was quite surprised I have never seen it be referenced by modern movies. In the scene I am talking about we see Jean looking in her mirror at how Charles, sitting in a bar, reading a newspaper, is constantly being approached by women. There is a good reason for that, apart from Charles being Henry Fonda. Namely, Charles is a bachelor billionaire heir; his father has a famous ale company. It's just quite unfortunate that Charles is not very interested in ale. He is interested in snakes, and is just returning from a year-long expedition in the Amazon, He is a naive scientist, who doesn't feel very secure around women, especially if he hasn't met a woman for a year. Jean and her father are professional con men who want to exploit his naivete, and know very well how to do that. While looking in her mirror Jean anticipates the moves of every woman approaching Charles, and of Charles himself, while at the same time predicting exactly how she will earn Charles' attention. 

It's a brilliantly conceived and shot scene, in which we learn everything we need to know about Charles simply by looking at him from Jean's point of view. Sturges hardly ever cuts to a close-up/medium shot of him and the women, shot from Charles' point of view. We don't hear their conversations. Most of what we see, we see through Jean's mirror. Besides being an original and interesting way to present a character, it is also an efficient one, After all, because of this approach we learn everything we need to know about Jean too. Of course Jean eventually falls in love with Charles, and Charles falls in love with Jean. That too is not very surprising. Barbara Stanwyck, whom I haven't seen before in a movie, gives one of the most sexy performances I've seen, and she certainly knows it. Fonda gives a great performance too, but both actors are helped enormously by the script which doesn't present their characters in a lazily stereotypical way. Once Jean falls in love with Charles she doesn't suddenly soften up and regret her criminal ways. Yes, she stops conning Charles, but that's simply because she loves the guy, not because she suddenly believes conning is inherently evil. As for Charles, he may be naive and insecure around women, but he is not oblivious to it. He knows what he should do around Jean, and knows when he is doing what he should not be doing. He is not an idiot.  

I also love how the movie is constructed. The movie basically exists of two big set pieces, one on the boat on its way to New York, and another in Charles' mansion. In between there is one scene that connects the two, before the first set piece there is a prologue, and after the second one there is basically an extended epilogue. During the the first set piece, the plot hardly moves forward. All the movie does then is set up the characters, and the problems they will face later on in the movie. The second set-piece than is the payoff. I preferred the first part, because it was very sharply written and a bit more grounded in some sort of reality than the second part, which was a bit too much screwball-y for my taste. But in any case I loved the movie's patience and its insistence that its characters are more interesting than the plot. I also love large set-pieces which do not necessarily move the plot forward and I find it quite unfortunate that too many modern movies do not even try to emulate a movie such as this one. I am not someone who believes that modern movies are in a bad shape, and I don't believe that movies used to be better. But it is to some extent unfortunate and bad for movies that these modes of film making are now all but extinct.