In 1950, two fairly similar movies were in competition during the Academy Awards. One was Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a nasty look at Hollywood through the eyes of a hack screenwriter, and of a former silent screen great who now lives in her run-down mansion, deluded and insane. The other was Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve, which was a witty, cynical portrait of the theater world, although it might as well have been about Hollywood, considering that it involved ego-ridden actors. Both films were smart, witty, and cynical, but Wilder’s work hit way too close to the bone (and is much darker), so it was no surprise that All About Eve became the big winner on Oscar night.

All About Eve begins with the awards ceremony for the theater world; a special award is given to Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), and, befitting a winner, her acceptance speech is fawning and sappy, containing all the right words and phrases. She thanks the people who have helped her, and we notice that none of them look particularly pleased. And they shouldn’t, considering the story that leads up to this event.

Months earlier, Eve was a nobody, faithfully attending the current play starring Margo Channing (Bette Davis) -- and, who, at the end of the night, stands outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the great star. One night, the wife (Celeste Holm) of the playwright decides to be a good samaritan and invite her backstage to meet the star. Eve shows herself to be a shy, self-critical woman -- she feels unworthy to be in the presence of such people. Yet she manages to affect Margo and the others in the dressing room, when she tells her painful story, of how her high-school sweetheart married her, only to be killed in action during the war. This human story affects Margo to the degree that she does everything she can to help this poor girl out, including hiring her to help around at the house, much to the chagrin of the real housekeeper (Thelma Ritter).

Very soon, however, even Margo has her doubts. Eve doesn’t just help Margo out, but fully insinuates herself into the star’s life. She does things in Margo’s name, such as calling Margo’s director boyfriend while he’s in Hollywood, setting him up to call Margo, expecting her to be wishing him a happy birthday. Soon afterwards, Eve is able to make herself Margo’s understudy, all the while insisting that she isn’t talented enough to deserve such a position.

Margo becomes vexed at Eve’s subtly manipulative behavior. But the people around her have seen all this before, to a degree. Margo seems to be threatened by Eve, because she’s seen as the younger woman, ready to usurp Margo’s stardom, and thereby affirming Margo’s contention that once you hit forty, you are washed up - especially if you are a forty year old woman. If nothing else, Margo’s concerns show us that the whole notion that the acting world discriminates against older woman is not a recent phenomenon.

It is clear from the outset that Eve’s character is not all that she seems; that she may not be as naive and sweet as she lets on. It, however, is still fun to see how far this gal will go to be a star, even if that means betraying all the people that wanted to reach out to her. Celeste Holm’s character is hurt the most; she was the one who noticed Eve first. And Holm is also responsible for an act, meant as a joke, that inadvertently gives Eve an even greater opportunity to claw her way to the top, at Margo’s expense.

Eve’s not the only nasty person in the story. A second individual, who more blatantly shows the world his callous nature, is Addison DeWitt, played by George Sanders. He’s the most ruthless theater critic in town, and has no scruples about saying what he wants to say -- as far as he’s concerned, everybody deserves what they get, and all of his comments reflect the brutal truth behind the glamourous exterior. DeWitt narrates the story, and gives us some choice comments along the way, as he ruthlessly skewers all of the principal characters. He is also an important character in the story proper, when he becomes intrigued by this Eve, who makes a show of modesty and naivety. Of course, it becomes clear that he can see right through her too, even though Eve puts a strong effort in stringing him along for her own purposes.

It would be tempting to call this film, directly, the Sunset Boulevard of the theater world, but that would be incorrect. Sunset Boulevard is a dark film, with tragedy and dark comedy in equal measure. All About Eve is far more amusing; its story is played more for laughs, and the characters, as a whole, are funnier, but in that sophisticated way. Many of the lines are just plain funny, and the sort that I wish I was able to write. Some of them I can even quote from memory -- when the playwright tells Margo that a Hollywood star has arrived, she says “Shucks! And I sent my autograph book to the cleaners.”. Davis to Ritter: “You’re going to get into this girdle and act for two and a half hours!”, Ritter: “I couldn’t get into the girdle in two and a half hours.” The producer, commenting to the director, about Margo.: “She loves me like a father. Also, she’s loaded.” And, then, of course, we get possibly Bette Davis’s most famous piece of dialogue: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

All About Eve is one of those perfect examples of movies that don’t try to dumb down to the audience. The characters are mostly vain, insecure, or nasty -- and while the movie is well-written and well-acted enough that we are able to connect with and feel for the characters, we’d just as soon laugh at them and their silly foibles, before we’d wish for a sappy ending. No, there are no sappy endings here -- in fact, the movie amusingly shows us that, in simple terms, what goes around comes around, and it also tells us that there have been, and probably always will be, hundreds of different versions of All About Eve playing in dressing rooms and backstages everywhere.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening