ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Writers: Joseph L. Mankiewicz adapting Mary Orr’s short story “The Wisdom of Eve”

Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck

Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Gary Merrill, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, Gregory Ratoff, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Bates, Walter Hampden

Broadway theatre star Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is troubled by her entry into middle age. Margo’s friend Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) introduces her to a young, lonely, and ardent fan named Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Eve ingratiates herself to Margo and her circle of friends and becomes Margo’s personal assistant. However, the pretty and ambitious young Eve exacerbates Margo’s insecurities.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Occasionally, my regular cinematic diet of vintage schlock and offbeat genre fare must be fortified with acknowledged mainstream classics. During such lapses of my bad taste, this immature film fan must sit up straight and eat everything on my plate because it’s good for me. My latest order for a well-balanced and nutritious movie meal was the justly revered All About Eve.

I had almost no preconceptions about this film or its subject matter. I knew that it starred Bette Davis in a great role and that it was considered a great film. Since Bette Davis is a classic movie legend, I thought it was high time that I found out what all the fuss was about. The only other thing I knew about this film was that it gave George Sanders the part that won him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I have appreciated the smooth and sardonic wit that Sanders can deliver better than anyone, which he demonstrated as hero Simon Templar in The Saint film series, so he was another factor drawing me to this film for the first time.

All About Eve could have tipped over into maudlin melodrama, yet it is much too nimble and cynical for that. That is not to say that it is just a snarkfest loaded with posturing by so-called characters meant to reassure us all that being presumptuous and conformist is some form of strength. All About Eve has some characters with decent sentiments and insecurities. They can be fallible or flawed, and even friends and lovers may have conflicts with each other that may be resolved by nothing more deliberate than just a cooling-off period. Most of the story’s cynicism is directed at the machinations and egos of some in the theatre and motion picture industry.

Margo Channing was the comeback role for Bette Davis that fit her like a glove. She was not the first choice for the role, but no one could have been more suited for it. As an aging film star herself, Davis may have had concerns that her best days career-wise were behind her. Davis certainly addresses such anxieties in her performance without losing our sympathy. This really surprised me, as I thought her Margo Channing would turn out to be the flamboyant diva that we would love to hate. Bette Davis’s irascible temperament provides the humorous grit the character needs, but her role is written and performed with enough sensitivity to make us engaged rather than judgmental. Nevertheless, that Bette Davis star power is burning brighter than ever when she utters that now-classic film quote, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

As Eve Harrington, Anne Baxter plays the title character in All About Eve that, initially, seems to be the least interesting. She has some surprises in store for us and prompts theatre diva Margo Channing to confront some of her own fears and develop some perspective. Ironically, the character that Anne Baxter plays would steal some of the thunder from both Bette Davis’s character in the film and perhaps from Davis’s real-life accolades. Since both Davis and Baxter were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar Award for their roles in this film, it may have somehow given Judy Holliday the edge to win the Oscar for her role in Born Yesterday (1950). Bette Davis herself speculated that Gloria Swanson’s nomination (for the role of another aging actress in 1950’s Sunset Boulevard) may have helped to cancel out Davis’s Oscar chances. Did three great performances about actresses that year make each of them seem less Oscar-worthy?

George Sanders’ voice is so good that it could qualify as a special effect. As theatre critic Addison DeWitt, his sardonic narration sets the tone for this film perfectly. Of all the characters in this film, DeWitt ends up being the most surprising, yet this is not done as any sort of redemptive act. He is anything but heroic. He is simply someone that remains true to his character, yet, in doing so, enacts a strange form of justice. While DeWitt is too cynical and egotistical to be truly righteous, it is his moment of prideful indignation at this picture’s climax that must have won Sanders the Oscar.

I had only seen Gary Merrill in the episode “The Human Factor” of the science fiction television series The Outer Limits (1963-65). Here he plays Bill Sampson, the Broadway theatre director and lover of Bette Davis’s Margo Channing. Merrill’s Sampson delivers some very verbose repartee throughout the film. This is all very dramatic and amusing, yet it still rings true to me. After all, theatre folk are accustomed to the wielding of words on stage for emotionally pointed effect, so it stands to reason that such people would be able to express theirselves that way in an impromptu manner. In yet another case of life imitating art from All About Eve, Merrill and Davis, having met on this film, began a relationship that led to their marriage of ten years.

Celeste Holm has the role of the nicest person in the film as Margo’s best friend, Karen Richards. As the amusing observation of Addison DeWitt’s opening narration points out, Karen only became part of the theatre crowd when she married playwright Lloyd Richards. My cynicism was immediately roused at that point, and I assumed that she would be a conniving hanger-on, yet she manages to remain seemingly wholesome. Once again, this film does not dole out obvious character payoffs to the audience. Karen is the catalyst of the story when she introduces fawning fan Eve Harrington to her idol Margo Channing. As Karen seems to be a very decent person, we can empathize with some of the emotional stress she is put through by others exploiting her goodwill efforts.

As Karen’s husband and Margo Channing’s frequent playwright, Lloyd Richards, Hugh Marlowe gets into a great shouting match with his temperamental star. Marlowe usually seems like the earnest everyman character in his roles, but that certainly does not mean his roles lacked range. He is probably best known for playing the world’s biggest heel in the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Marlowe would heroically redeem himself by trying to save the world from another extraterrestrial threat in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956).

Two small roles are performed by very noteworthy ladies. The reliably amusing and acerbic Thelma Ritter plays Birdie, Margo Channing’s maid. Ritter was just one of many highlights in that Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window (1954). All About Eve also features a young bit player by the name of Marilyn Monroe. (Perhaps you’ve heard of her.) In this early role, she appears as Claudia Casswell. We meet her as critic Addison DeWitt’s escort trying to charm her way into the entertainment industry by flirting and flaunting what she’s got.

With a great cast to embody writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s conflicted characters and deliver his smart dialogue, this picture may have seemed like a shoo-in for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director honors at the Academy Awards. But even Mankiewicz himself has acknowledged that the 20th Century Fox producer he had so much contention with, Darryl F. Zanuck, also made contributions by honing and simplifying his films to make them more effective. It was also Zanuck who changed this film’s title from Best Performance to All About Eve.

According to Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s son, All About Eve expressed many of his filmmaker father’s misgivings about the entertainment industry. Mankiewicz seemed to have more respect for the theatre scene, but enjoyed the greater financial rewards of Hollywood filmmaking and the greater control he could exert over a film than a live stage performance. 

While he seemed disdainful of the Hollywood crowd, the married Mankiewicz didn’t mind cavorting with various Hollywood starlets. This obviously contributed to a very stressful homelife in the Mankiewicz household. The marital dysfunction with his ex-actress wife must have inspired much of the attitude the writer-director portrays in that great cocktail party scene at Margo Channing’s residence. A bumpy night indeed!

It is rather fitting that a filmmaker who had more respect for the world of Broadway stages than Hollywood film studios would win Academy Awards for a film about theatre talents that plays out like a stage drama. Mankiewicz thought that the writing and performances should carry the story. Aside from just a few establishing shots, nearly everything occurs in interior settings that would be ideal for a stage play. Yet All About Eve also uses close-ups to allow its players to share feelings with us through subtle facial expressions that punctuate great dialogue. That is the simple power that can make a film classic.

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