Review of The Three Faces of Eve (1957) by Jim H — 24 Aug 2011

This film is the portrait of a woman with multiple personality disorder.

I think Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress best summarizes my opinion of this film: "It once seemed daring[;] now it seems simplistic." At the time, 1957, this film probably portrayed a little-known condition with little-known Freudian treatment, so that the popular audience had to be assured of the subject's verisimilitude, hence the framing narrator vouching for the film's accuracy to a point that the narrator "doth protest too much methinks." But now, Eve's condition is portrayed more like Thing from another World with magical and threatening music toning in every time one of Eve's personalities appears. It becomes heavy-handed, and for an audience that has seen Raising Cain, among all the other films about multiple personalities, it's trite.

That said, Joanne Woodward is fantastic, fully creating each personality and delivering a performance that of the "they don't make 'em like that any more" variety. I also liked the film's feminist overtones. Ralph is an appropriate villain, and making him the villain, the film impugns patriarchal culture.

The story's construction is also faulty in parts. There's no need for Woodward's song, and who the hell is Earl? He suddenly appears like the deus ex machina he is, and we have no reason to think of him as a worthy goal.

Overall, The Three Faces of Eve is a film to see because it's a classic, but unlike most good classics, it has been imitated and refined to the point that it lost its originality and spark.