This wonderfully witty masterpiece was written and directed by the inimitable Preston Sturges. The plot gives a couple of near career-best roles to two of Hollywood's finest, who are perfectly cast here. Henry Fonda plays a wealthy young man obsessed by snakes, who lays himself wide open to the schemes of professional con artist Charles Coburn and his daughter, Barbara Stanwyck. Fonda's buddy, William Demarest, intervenes, but Stanwyck, undeterred, later reappears in disguise at Fonda's palatial manse and tries again. Naturally, the slick, assured sexual opportunist falls for the gauche brewer's son who has spent a year up the Amazon, resulting in a witty, sparkling combination of romance and screwball comedy that is still unequalled. There was a 1956 remake with Mitzi Gaynor called The Birds and the Bees, but it didn't come within spitting distance of this great original.

It's no accident when wealthy Charles falls for Jean. Jean is a con artist with her sights set on Charles' fortune. Matters complicate when Jean starts falling for her mark. When Charles suspects Jean is a gold digger, he dumps her. Jean, fixated on revenge and still pining for the millionaire, devises a plan to get back in Charles' life. With love and payback on her mind, she re-introduces herself to Charles, this time as an aristocrat named Lady Eve Sidwich.