"All About Eve" is a black comedy that cynically skewers the theater, with an outstanding and wicked script. It was nominated for an amazing fourteen Oscars, winning six including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Joseph L. Mankiewicz both directed and adapted the screenplay from Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve".
Bette Davis stars as aging actress Margo
Channing, whose long-successful Broadway career
is based upon plays written by Lloyd Richards
(Hugh Marlowe) and directed by Bill Sampson (Gary
Merrill). Bill is also her lover, although their
relationship is stormy due to temperamental
Davis' insecurity about their age difference
(Bill is eight years younger). (Davis and Merrill
wed in real life, later in 1950). Margo's best
friend is Lloyd's wife Karen (Celeste Holm).
Karen takes pity on a starstruck young woman who
keeps hanging around the theater, hoping to get a
glimpse of Margo. This lovely, ingratiating young
woman is Eve (Anne Baxter) who, upon being
introduced to Margo, soon becomes her servant and
secretary. Gradually it becomes apparent that Eve
wishes to become the next Margo Channing, as she
tries to take Margo's place in Lloyd's upcoming
play, and even tries to steal both Lloyd and
Bill. Eve's rise is partly choreographed by
sarcastic, cold-hearted theater critic Addison De
Witt (George Sanders). Marilyn Monroe, already
stereotyped, has a small supporting role as a
dim-witted would-be actress.
The script is about as good as it gets. Margo's
line "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a
bumpy night" is the most famous, but in their
context many others are just as good. My favorite
is Margo's withering comment "All playwrights
should be dead for 300 years!" Underpinning the
script and story is Margo's fear of losing both
Bill and her career to the younger, more
attractive Eve, while not realizing that even her
spoiled diva personality is superior to Eve's
fraudulent humility and cunning manipulations.
The awards ceremony shown at film's beginning and
end epitomizes Eve's (and the theater's?)
phoniness, with Eve in her acceptance speech
thanking Margo, Lloyd, Bill, and Karen while they
in turn watch her with ironical contempt. (92/100)
Given that she throws tantrums gets intoxicated and pushes people away when she needs them the most it's a wonder New York theater star Margo Channing...More at Family Video
The dialogue is scintillating, characters...extraordinary, direction...perfect and production as fine as anything 20th Century Fox has turned out in J...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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