All About Eve (1950)

Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 138 minutes | drama | Actors: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merill, Thelma Ritter, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe, Barbara Bates, Gregory Ratoff, Walter Hampden, Randy Stuart, Craig Hill, Leland Harris, Barbara White

In the year 1950, two films were made that are very similar. Both are about an older actress who has had her best days and doesn’t really want to resign herself to it. ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and ‘All About Eve’, because those two films are concerned, show similarities in even more areas. Gloria Swanson not only played an outcast actress in ‘Sunset Boulevard’, but in reality she was. The lead actress of ‘All About Eve’, Bette Davis, saw her popularity dwindle after a glittering career. She had left Warner Brothers after eighteen years and everyone thought her career was over. After all, at 41 years old, she was no longer the youngest…

But while Gloria Swanson’s character in a completely different reality makes it seem like she still matters in the movie world, Davis’s character Margo Channing does matter in the stage world. She is a true diva that people go to the theater for. One of those visitors is Eve Harrington. In her immense admiration for Margo, she even visits all her performances. She is therefore pleasantly surprised when Margo’s friend Karen offers her to meet her heroine. Shyly she tells Margo about her unhappy past and knows how to move her. Margo almost feels it’s her duty to include Eve in her entourage. Eve is modest and helpful, but turns out to have her own reasons for this; she herself has aspirations to become a celebrated stage actress.

‘All About Eve’ has a strong script (written by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz), which is particularly reflected in the razor-sharp dialogues. Bette Davis, in particular, throws one cynical comment after another at her colleagues with visible pleasure. That it also comes across as convincing has everything to do with the fact that she differs little from her character Margo. This ‘Bette Davis plays Bette Davis’ acting performance earned her a well-deserved Oscar nomination. She would have deserved that Oscar, were it not for the fact that the other lead actress, Anne Baxter who plays Eve, had also been nominated. Due to this fierce internal competition, Judy Holiday eventually took the statuette and the credit for her role in ‘Born Yesterday’.

The problem with such a powerful star as Davis in the cast is that the other actors are already ahead of the curve. Anne Baxter, for example, is somewhat dull as Eve, while she certainly does not play her difficult role badly. The presence of Bette Davis overshadows any scene in which both play. However, there are also exceptions. George Sanders is strong as a ruthless double agenda critic, just as almost everyone in ‘All About Eve’ has a double agenda. And Thelma Ritter as Margo’s right-hand man Birdie Coonan, who is the only one who doesn’t quite trust Eve right away, plays strong. Also striking is Marilyn Monroe, in one of her first roles, as an innocent dumb blonde looking for an acting career.

The structure of ‘All About Eve’ is ingenious: during the opening ceremony, the camera slides past the audience, introducing the protagonists via voice-overs. The perspective changes, from the haughty theater critic to the playwright’s wife, who lament that Eve has made it this far. The final scene is also unforgettable: the emptiness of fame has rarely been portrayed so beautifully. ‘All About Eve’ is not just a story about what goes on behind the scenes (not a single scene of a stage performance is in it), but above all a story about how people can use each other to achieve their own goals. At the end this only results in losers… An unforgettable film.