Review of All About Eve (1950) by Stephen R — 12 Apr 2010

An Alphabetical Guide to Every Film You Ever Need to See Vol.8.

In 2010, Broadway is little more than a tourist attraction, a place you can go to see kitschy musical versions of your favorite movies. Bette Davis? She's just another dead movie star, probably best known for a song that was written about her eyes, even though many people still couldn't put her name with her face if they had to. In 1950, on the other hand, the Broadway theatre was the highest echelon of the dramatic arts, every writer a genius and every actress a muse, and Bette Davis? She was the epitome of charm and romance on the silver screen, even though the years of '47, '48 , and '49 had not been her best. Joseph L. Mankiewicz took these two wonderfully romanticized notions, put them together, and...cut them into tiny little pieces with a sardonic scissor of a screenplay that to this day, remains one of the finest ever written. He called it All About Eve.

"Margo Channing, is a great star, a true star. She never was or will be anything less or anything else." This is the grandiose introduction we are given to Margo Channing (Davis), an actress worthy of such praise. Even in her 40s she stars as characters half her age in some of this biggest plays on Broadway. She plays muse to the theater's hottest young writer Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), and is dating Bill Simpson (Gary Merrill) one of New York's most respected directors.

It would be easy to dismiss Davis' performance as self parody, the bitchy actress who is quickly approaching the twilight of her career, but she brings so much more than that to the character of Margo. Margo's insecurities about her age and her looks are treated with striking seriousness by Davis, and she allows us to catch a glimpse into the heart of someone who's lived their whole life in the spotlight.

After a performance of her latest hit play, Margo is introduced to a young lady named Eve (Anne Baxter) by her best friend Karen (Celeste Holm). Eve, a war widow, has been to every performance of Ms. Channing's new play, and waits outside every night to watch her leave the building. Margo takes an almost immediate liking to Eve, and invites her to become a kind of personal assistant to her, before that term was fashionable.

It's not long though,before the relationship between Margo and Eve begins to sour. Margo suspects Eve of trying to take over her life, and even worse take her man. Is Eve really up to no good, or are time and insecurity finally getting the better of the great Margo Channing? It's also about this time that Eve begins to become friendly with smarmy theater critic Addison Dewitt, an Academy Award winning role for George Sanders. Sanders. in case you didn't know, is possibly, the greatest prick in film history. He is obtrusively smug.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz had already won an Oscars for best director and best original screenplay the previous year for his film "A Letter to Three Wives" and he would repeat that feat with All About Eve. Mankiewicz's dialogue is intelligent and biting in a way that is hard to find in any film, from any time period. He creates no fewer than six complete and totally realized characters in All About Eve, when most films have a hard time creating one. He also must have had an eye for talent. Mankiewicz cast a then unknown actress named Marilyn Monroe to play a bit part as a beautiful young actress plying her feminine wiles in an attempt to advance her career, quite a stretch I'm sure.

Mankiewicz moves his characters through finely tuned scenes and subplots that successfully obliterate the romance of the Broadway stage, and to a certain extent the notion of celebrity itself. All About Eve is one of the great gems of Hollywood's golden age, and a monument to the art of screenwriting.