"Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. Enough said."

"The Lady Eve, written and directed by Preston Sturgess, with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. That’s a great movie."

"Preston Sturges — Lady Eve, with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, and that’s just a brilliant film. I could have had any number of Preston Sturges films. He’s the funniest director I think. When I was working with Bridget Fonda, we were talking — we were mucking about doing double-takes and she said, “My grandfather did a quadruple take in the Lady Eve.” I thought, “Your grandfather? Oh, your grandfather! Oh, you mean Henry Fonda. Oh, for God’s sake.” So I went back and she’s right. He does a quadruple take."

"There’s another western that I really love, with Charles Bronson. It’s called Once Upon A Time in the West. I love westerns. You know, Eastwood, Bronson, Henry Fonda, they were the best for westerns."

"Preston Sturges at his best. This was the first of his films I ever saw, in a revival at the Regency in New York, and it was a revelation. You’ve never heard dialogue so funny or move so fast. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda are hysterical, and it has maybe my favorite line ever in a movie—Fonda asks a fancy old society lady at a dinner party if he’s missed anything. She says, “The fish was a poem.”"

"A great statement on human nature made by one of my favorite directors, Sidney Lumet. Early Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, and Martin Balsam are brilliant here, as well as the messenger/angel Henry Fonda. If you have any doubts about jury duty, please watch this. As for justice, there is just us . . ."

"Okay, I’m cheating: no one is murdered, and the confidence men and cardsharps are lovable. Still. This is Preston Sturges’s peak—a comedy that has not dated one whit, for which everyone involved, not least the actors (Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, supported by a quartet of inspired scene stealers: Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, Eric Blore, William Demarest), seems to have been thoroughly stimulated. Demarest’s closing line is perfect."

"I’m grateful I saw this movie when I was twelve years old, without a scrap of cynicism. It was my first exposure to the anatomy of a sequestered jury. I remember I couldn’t wait to get my turn to serve, to be like Henry Fonda and repudiate bigotry once and for all. This was the American dream—not a Cadillac and a cigar but justice—righteousness and fair play that any child could understand."

"I’ll choose one of the Preston Sturges comedies. It’s hard to decide between Lady Eve and Sullivan’s Travels. Those are two wonderful films. I’ve seen The Lady Eve maybe six or seven times. It’s Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, right? It makes me laugh every time. It is a great comedy with some great, wonderful slapstick, and just very clever, very witty, and very sexy, too. She was very sexy in this film. These are all films that I watch more than once."

"Once Upon a Time in the West would come on the million-dollar movie. We had that once a week, I think, when everything was deployed on television. I had a [inaudible] television and I watched Once Upon a Time in the West, and I was blown away by the power in the stillness and silence of Charles Bronson as Harmonica, and I just thought the culmination of Morricone’s score with Leone’s gorgeous style, and then the showdown between Henry Fonda, who is outstanding as a bad guy, and Bronson was one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever experienced in cinema, and it really made a big impact."