Cinema Sunday: All About Eve

Well after 6 weeks of Star Trek movies, this week Cinema Sunday returns to real movies. 

Yep, it's a black and white movie from 1950 with nary a space ship in sight.  

All About Eve is considered by many as a significant classic in American cinema. The film was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who also made The Ghost and Mrs. Muir which I wrote about back on Sunday, June 6, 2021.  

All About Eve stars Bette Davis who also starred in Mr. Skeffington which I wrote about last year, November 15, 2020.

Like in Mr. Skeffington, Bette Davis' role in All About Eve centers around ego, vanity, aging and mortality. 

Also like in Mr. Skeffington, the title All About Eve is not about Bette Davis' role.

Bette Davis is Margo Channing, a grand dame of the Broadway theater scene. "Grand dame" is a polite way of saying you're old. 

Margo Channing for all her skill and talent as an actress and for all her ego and hubris about that skill and talent is insecure and fearful. Being Broadway's biggest star just means being the Broadway's biggest target for some younger, prettier actress to come along and take your place on the stage. 

Which is where Eve comes in. 

It all starts innocently enough. Margo's friend Karen introduces Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), to Margo. Eve is Margo's biggest fan and tells Margo and her friends the sad tale of her life, growing up poor in Wisconsin, losing her young husband during World War II. 

Moved, Margo quickly befriends Eve, takes her into her home, and hires her as her assistant.   

Of course, Eve is not the sweet innocent thing she purports to be.

Now if you're thinking, "Hey, Dave-El, don't go spoiling the plot twist",  you can really see this coming from a mile away.

Besides, Joe Mankiewicz warns you up front. The film opens with the big new Broadway star Eve Harrington receiving an award. No one makes it that far and that fast without grinding someone under her heel. 

Let's start with Margo. 

Eve insinuates herself into Margo's life in almost every detail, an ascended fan girl working as Margo's personal secretary, taking liberties, anticipating her every need. Margo's joy over her fan turned helper changes to distrust and bitterness. 

Margo knows Eve is up to something.

There's a saying that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being followed.

Eve is up to something.

Without Margo's knowledge, Eve arranges to become Margo's understudy in her current play. Then Eve arranges for Margo to miss a performance. And then Eve has arranged for an inordinately large number of theater critics to be in the audience on the very night of Eve's performance when no one knew until the last possible moment that Margo was not going to make it.

No one, that is, except Eve.  

The papers are filled with rave notices over the unexpected delights of Eve Harrington. 

And we're off! 

Eve's gosh darn li'l ol' me demeanor hides a master manipulator who ascends the ranks of the Broadway literati as she supplants Margo Channing as the biggest star on the Great White Way. 

Margo knows Eve is manipulating things but she can't speak to it without sounding mean, spiteful, paranoid and bitter.  

Bette Davis acts the hell out of her role as Margo Channing with a bitter wit as sharp as glass, egotistically full of herself for her place in the Broadway hierarchy but sadly hating herself for pushing people away as she ages into irrelevance. At turns caustic and sad, Margo knows her time as Broadway's biggest star is limited. And she hates letting Eve into her life to hasten that downward trajectory along.   

At one point, Bette Davis gets to give one of the greatest lines in American movie history: "Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy night."   

That line could apply to the whole movie. All About Eve is a roller coaster ride of emotional upheaval and drama from beginning to end.