All About Eve - Joseph Mankiewicz, 1950

 

All About Eve - a fable about Broadway.

 This is basically a film about collaborative artists. They’re working on a play, “Aged in Wood”. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) plays the lead, Lloyd Richards ( Hugh Marlowe) wrote it, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) becomes the understudy, Addison Dewitt (George Sanders) is the theater critic, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) is a director and Margo’s boyfriend, and Karen Richard’s (Celeste Holm) is Lloyd’s wife. Eve progresses to become Margo’s successful understudy with the help of Karen and the youthful replacement is applauded by Addison, the astute critic who has "lived in the theater as a Trappist monk lives in his cell".  Forced to confront her age, Margo steps away from playing lead in Lloyd’s next project, and immediately accepts Bill’s proposal of marriage, to pursue a more private life.

Eve has proven herself to be ruthless and duplicitous in pursuit of a career and the men attached to the women who helped her.  But on Addison’s authority, we may accept that theater has been well served - while both of the men reject her advances.

 So all’s well that ends well for these artists , on stage and off - and a good supporting cast has given Bette Davis ample opportunity to express a range of emotions with her famous, half lidded eyes.  As a bonus treat, an amazing new actor, Marilyn Monroe, shows how much her face can express in the few seconds allotted to her.  Above all, we are introduced to a special world by artists who have lived in it - as opposed to movies about Roman gladiators or cowboys.

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On the other hand , however, we are welcomed into that special world by Addison Dewitt, the theater critic, who tells us that the only function of writers and producers is to “build a platform on which the actor may shine”. This defines a certain kind of theater that might better be called entertainment than art. He goes on to introduce the producer as the kind “who is out to make a buck”, and he does seem to instigate controversies that are not about the plays themselves. He need not have involved Eve in attacking

Margo.

Evidently, this British gentleman is slumming in the sordid alleys of American entertainment. “Unable to love or be loved”, as he puts it, he asserts “ownership” of Eve by threatening to reveal her sordid past. More than a little creepy - though there is no hint of a sexual relationship - and he only announced his ownership in order to prevent  her from trying to marry Karen’s husband. At the end, Eve is packing her bags for Hollywood, with the good possibility she will never return.  

So Broadway does not have a new star after all.  It’s just seen the impending retirement of an old one.  BTW - Eve’s natural talent truly was amazing - but possible.  Like Mozart being able to hear a concert of new music and then sit down to write the score, Eve taught herself how to act by watching a good actress over and over.  No acting classes were needed.  Everyone she knew at the  award ceremony hated her - but they all appreciated her talent.

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The humor here is as dry as Addison’s monotone - but the title of the play that won Miss Eve the coveted  Sarah Siddons award was “Footsteps on the Ceiling”

Now that’s a hoot!