Review of All About Eve (1950) by Kenneth L — 01 Jun 2010

One of the most famous movies ever made, and it mostly deserves it. It's a great story about an aging Broadway actress (Bette Davis in probably her most characteristic role) and the ambitious young woman (Anne Baxter) who uses that actress as a springboard to manipulate her way into a career.

At 2 hours and 18 minutes, the movie is probably a bit too long; the beginning is kinda boring at parts. But it picks up once we get to the party scene, when Bette Davis says her famous line, "Buckle your seat belts, it's gonna be a bumpy night.

" Just about everyone in the movie was nominated for Oscars, and George Sanders (whom you might know as the voice of Sher Khan in The Jungle Book) won one as a cynical theater journalist. Bette Davis didn't win an Oscar, but probably deserved one.

Marilyn Monroe makes one of her first appearances in a brief supporting role. The script is really good and has some delightfully nasty insults (a writer tells an actress, "It's about time the piano learned it didn't write a concerto!").

The last 15 minutes are especially good, and I love the final shot, which manages to get a lot across without any dialogue. This movie won Best Picture and a bunch of other major Oscars for 1950. It's a good story, with lots of manipulation, lying, and blackmail.