All About Eve
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All About Eve
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1990.
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All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It was based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr, although screen credit was not given for it.
Why It Rocks
- It's the quintessential Hollywood film about Broadway, or more specifically Broadway actors. Thanks to an outsized performance by Bette Davis and a script crammed with sarcastic one-liners, All About Eve remains almost as popular today as when it was released. Ironically enough, we never actually see anyone performing onstage during the film, probably to show that the actors' offstage life is just as dramatic as their actual stage roles.
- Incredible ensemble cast
- As previously stated, Batty Davis provides an iconic star turn, especially with real-life parallels between the actress and character which lent extra fascination.
- Anne Baxter is unforgettable as Eve Harrington
- George Sanders is a particular highlight of the movie, clearly having a field day as the sardonic, menacing theater critic Addison DeWitt.
- Marilyn Monroe has a small, comedic, yet memorable role.
- While it's based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve", a couple of key changes were made which helped out the film.
- In the short story, Margolo Cranston, who’s 45, is happily married, but in the film’s script, Margo Channing, who’s 40, is single.
- The ending of the film is different, and Mankiewicz added the part of Birdie Coonan for Thelma Ritter.
- There are a couple of different way to interpret the film and its inspiration
- Citizen Kane’s fascination with journalism is mirrored by the film’s interest with the theater, but the closer connection is the contrast between a former fading star and his/her younger replacement.
- Like A Letter to Three Wives, All About Eve focuses on three female roles: the aging star Margo, her understudy Eve Harrington, and Margo’s friend Karen – an actress in the story but a “civilian” in the movie – and is told in flashback through a voice-over narration. Celeste Holm –Karen’s actress – viewed the film as not all about the character of Eve, but rather women in general.
- While the film’s characters were a little overwritten. The director was trying to ensure people caught on. Even if it leads to hard-bitten theater types instantly fall for the cunning Eve, failing to see through her patently melodramatic ploys. The theater people are brilliant, driven, glamorous, but also dopes.
- Lots of razor-sharp wit and biting humor, that continues to be loved even to this day, including Margo's famous "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." or “It's about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto.”
- What really endeared the film to moviegoers was the optimism underlying the director’s cynicism, the sense that things would ultimately work out for the best. It was a view far more romantic than that of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard.
Bad Qualities
- A lot of the male actors (aside from George Saunders as Addison Dewitt and Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian), were mostly Fox contact players, and they're considered the weakest aspect of the film today.
- A couple of unnecessary reaction shots that put the film’s to a halt
- Some alterations and attempts to simplify the narrative led to some inconsistencies, such as how flashbacks and voiceovers switch to one person to another.
- For some unexplained reason, Birdie disappears from the film midway and never even gets mentioned again by the other characters after she's gone.
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