Ever Since Eve is a 1937 film directed by Lloyd Bacon.
Marge Winton (Marion Davies) is a secretary who keeps getting propositioned and sexually harassed at work, because she's so darn pretty. Since it's 1937 and there are no Human Resources departments and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is still 27 years in the future, this results in Marge indignantly quitting job after job after job.
Marge goes back to the employee agency and finds out that one particular employer is only looking for homely women. (Remember: 1937.) In order to get this job Marge uglies herself up, wearing an unflattering wig, dorky glasses, and bulky clothes. The job is secretary/stenographer to Freddy Matthews (Robert Montgomery), an author who has a due date for a book manuscript, who typically has difficulty focusing and putting words to paper, and has even more difficulty when he has the usual Sexy Secretary.
With Marge's assistance Freddy finally starts churning out prose. Meanwhile Marge starts falling in love with handsome Freddy, who can be charming when he isn't indulging in 1937-style sexism. Things get more complicated when Freddy pays a surprise visit to Marge's apartment and finds Marge as her usual lovely self. Marge has to pretend to be someone else (she takes the name of her roommate Sadie) and various romantic and comic hijinks ensue.
Marion Davies' last film.
Tropes:
- Big Electric Switch: All the main characters find themselves at a hotel in Monterey towards the end. Romantic jealousies are interrupted when a gang of criminals shows up to rob the place. One of them pulls the stereotypical giant knife switch to cut power to the building.
- Crushing Handshake: Sadie (the real one) has a dimwitted boyfriend named Jake who brings home his even dumber boss, Al, as a possible match for Marge. Sadie is not impressed when Al crushes her hand with a handshake.
- Dartboard of Hate: Marge, who has fallen in love with Freddy, throws darts at a portrait of his girlfriend Camille.
- The Exit Is That Way: Al, who's been matched up with Marge, is so desperate to escape when he meets her in her dowdy disguise that he makes a beeline for what looks like the door and instead goes into the broom closet.
- Glasses-and-Ponytail Coverup: It's actually glasses and an unflattering wig, but it's more or less the same, as Mabel uses this as well as some dowdy business suits in order to look unattractive.
- The Glasses Gotta Go: Freddy is so horrified when he meets supposedly unattractive Mabel that he insists she take off her glasses, hoping to make an improvement. After she pretends to be Blind Without 'Em, he gives up.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Mabel fakes this, going for a style of inelegant blubbering that sounds more like she's choking, when Freddy decides to send her back because she's just too ugly. Freddy relents and keeps her on.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: The first shot of the movie is a cop on the beat calling his station from a call box, and telling headquarters that "Everything's OK." Immediately after this a book comes flying from a second story window, shattering the glass before landing at his feet. The book was thrown by Marge, who is in the process of quitting on her latest lech of a boss.
- Hypocrite: The first boss seen hitting on Marge (actually, it's the aftermath where she's quitting) works for the Peace & Purity League.
- Meet Cute: Freddy and Marge meet for the first time before she comes to work for him, and when she's looking pretty, as Freddy gallantly picks up some popcorn Marge spilled all over the place at a restaurant.
- Moustache de Plume: Gender-flipped. Freddy's pal Mike McGillicuddy writes adventure fiction aimed at young girls. His publisher insists he write as "Mabel DeCraven".
- Romance Novel: Satirized, which is unusual since romance novels aimed at women were still a pretty new thing in the 1930s. But that's definitely what Freddy's writing, as his book has lines like "As he removed his shirt revealing his bronze biceps, the wind ruffled his golden hair."
- Sexy Secretary: What Mabel is at the beginning of the movie, much to her discomfort as her bosses won't stop hitting on her. She deliberately tries to be as unattractive as possible. Freddy for his part seems to expect a sexy secretary (it's implied that he has a habit of seducing them) and tries to send Mabel back when she shows up.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Marge quits on a handsy boss. She gets another job, but quits that one after all three of the partners hit on her. After that she decides to get ugly to get the job with the publishing company.
- Title Drop: A song called "Ever Since Eve" is heard playing when Freddy and Marge (in her beautiful mode) are dancing in a Hawaiian-themed nightclub.
- Two-Person Love Triangle: There's Freddy, Marge in her dowdy disguise falling in love with Freddy, and Freddy falling for Marge when she's her normal beautiful self and pretending to be named Sadie. (Technically it might be a Three Person Love Dodecahedron since there's also Freddy's bitchy girlfriend, Camille.)
