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Summary: All About Eve - What Is There To Know?
Review: All About Eve is a film about a closely-knit group of theatre folk. Eve (Anne Baxter) is a young woman who is obsessed with the well known and loved actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis). She awaits outside by the stagedoor every night, just to see Margo enter and exit. A close friend of Margo, Karen Richards (wife of the writer Lloyd Richards [Celeste Holm]) sees Eve and invites her in to finally meet Margo. Eve tells of her personal life to Margo, the Richards, and Birdie (Margo's maid [Thelma Ritter]). Eve's life is a tragic one, and the party of friends immediately bring her into their fold, especially Margo. Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), the director, enters to fetch Margo. He wants her to see him off at the airport, for he is going to Hollywood to direct one movie. Eve asks him "Why Hollywood?" Bill sounds off to the effect that the theatre is not the centre of the world. But, eventually, he takes a liking to Eve, who joins them at the airport. Margo takes Eve to live with and work for her. Who would know that this "mousey" young woman would turn out to be a RAT! Eve schemes and cons her way to get a coveted role in a new play by Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe). She is eventually found out by one Addison DeWitt (George Sanders). He truly knew all about Eve. The end is quite amazing. But all turns out well for the group of friends; and even Eve (but for her it's a sort of left-handed success). Bette Davis is wonderful in this film. She plays an aging actress who is in love with the director, Bill Sampson, who is eight years her junior. You can't help but feel a deep sympathy for Margo. The cast, story, settings are all superb.
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Summary: Update on my earlier review: Great new RESTORED DVD version!
Review: This is one film that is never as good as it's remembered to be. I don't even think it was ever as good as it was supposed to be. I think a post-mortem edit would vastly improve the storyline. Either that or an autopsy.Perhaps it's time for a remake. I can just imagine dozens of Bette Davis drag queens "camping out" (pun intended) the night before auditions to recast the Davis role! (Where is Charles Pierce when we need him?) The film has it's merits, but it is so hopelessly dated and corny that only the biggest of Bette Davis fans can get through an entire viewing without swigging martinis ala Diva Davis herself. Two sparkling moments shine through this heavy-duty divadrama: Bette belting out the immortal line "Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy night!"; and Marilyn Monroe's minor appearance at Bette's boyfriend's birthday bash. TECHNICAL REMARKS:
There is a NEW DVD release of this film in which the image quality has been digitally restored. This version is a HIGH QUALITY restoration of the original film. Definitely an improvement on the earlier DVD release on which I originally submited a technical review. If you bought the earlier original DVD release, throw it to the wind like a frisbee (and hopefully your dog won't retreive it) and go out and buy the newly released digitally restored DVD version. It's worth the extra price... which is exactly why Fox released an inferior version prior to releasing a digitally-enhanced version. After all, a big conglomeration like Fox Video can't make money unless we all go out and buy the same film twice! *** This review will be remembered as the first-ever appearance of the word "divadrama", which I came up with today, 1/9/02. Remember you heard it here first. When you hear it on "Will & Grace" you'll know it was my personal contribution to gay society. Thank you! ***
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Summary: All About Great Entertainment
Review: "All About Eve" is one of the greatest films released in 1950. It deservingly garnered a record 14 Oscar nominations (tied only by "Titanic") and won four, including Best Picture. Its plot adaptation from the original TV special is brilliant. Its theme of a middle-aged actress who meets an admirer who's determined to break into show business. Its combination of drama, romance, and betrayal keeps audiences interested from beginning to end. The various narration lines are a brilliant way to accent the events and the characters' emotions without the annoying repetition. Every event and word expressed keeps the necessary emotions intact. Such substance forces the audience to think about the storyline rather than revealing everything at once. The acting is great! Bette Davis proves as always that she's one of the top 10 greatest actresses in cinema history. Her role as the stage actress Margo Channing is unique from other movies. Davis expresses Channing's bad attitude superb. Anne Baxton portrays admirer Eve Harrington wonderfully. Baxton combines Harrington's truths and deceptions perfectly while never losing the quality. Davis and Baxton deservingly received Oscar nominations for Best Actress for their roles. George Sanders won his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Addison Dewitt, which he performs brilliantly. All other actors also perform their roles wonderfully; Celeste Holm, Marilyn Monroe, and others. "All About Eve" is the ultimate film experience for those looking for a classic. Every detail in this film answers why this became a classic. This is sure to continue pleasing audiences for many more years. Fans and those looking for more should also watch "Jezebel" (1938, starring Bette Davis), and "Chicago" (2002, explores more show-biz greed),
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Summary: Good Movie
Review: I liked it and would suggest it. The best part about the movie is the end.
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Summary: Bette Davis Shines
Review: This is Bette Davis in top form, glamorous, somewhat vixenish, somewhat a victim, everything needed for a great performance. Marilyn Monroe has a small role, but stands out during her scenes, as well, even when she is not speaking. Ann Baxter is also wonderful as the scheming Eve. Check it out, you could be pleasantly surprised.
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Summary: The dialogue sings!
Review: This is a fantastic movie that is packed with zingers and witty dialogue that crackle with brilliance. According to the commentary Bette Davis was awarded the role almost by default after acting in several flops prior to that, but you'd never guess that by watching the film. In fact all of the characters seem as if the parts found them instead of the other way around. Marilyn Monroe is a hoot as Miss Caswell, and with a historical perspective they obviously didn't have back then, downright eerie. Anne Baxter is completely convincing as Eve Harrington.
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Summary: Classic story; classic performances
Review: When I was a kid I would go to the second-run movie theater virtually every Saturday and watch three features, a cartoon and a newsreel indiscriminately. It was all wonderful to me (although I would hide bashfully behind the seat during the love scenes). I would come out of the theater several hours later (sometimes watching one of the features twice) amazed at what I'd seen and changed forever. The first adult movie that ever really held my interest though was All About Eve. Such is the power of the all too human story and how directly and clearly it is told from a celebrated script and some sublime direction by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Bette Davis who was then, by Hollywood standards for actresses, an ancient 41-years-old but not yet halfway through a 58-year movie career, stars as Margo Channing, a New York stage actress feeling very heavily the loss of her splendid youth. Eve Harrington is played with a veiled duplicity by Anne Baxter in a breakout role. I sat with fascination, understanding perfectly how and why she had insinuated herself into Margo's life, and on the edge of my seat to find out what would become of her. Yes, a child may well know of such matters, and it is to the credit of Mankiewicz and everyone involved in the production that a movie could be made that would inform and fire the imagination of a ten-year-old boy while at the same time intrigue and entertain adults. Ah, if only they made "chick flicks" like this today! Of course, All About Eve is more than a chick flick even though the men, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) as Margo's beau, and Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) as a writer (and husband of Margo's best friend, Karen, played by Celest Holm) headed for Hollywood, take a back seat to the main action which is the playing out of the eternal power struggle between (take your pick: they all fit psychologically): youth and age, the daughter and the mother, the bride and the mother-in-law, the upstart and the established talent, the new and the old. Bette Davis is excellent of course, and the role fits her like a glove. But what transfixed me as a child was the contrast between the wholesome good looks of Anne Baxter and her sneaky treachery. Could someone so pretty be so bad? I may have wondered who I would have preferred for a mother, Davis or Baxter, and perhaps have come away not knowing. For Bette Davis the luster had gone from those famous eyes, and so it was only natural that her character Margo feared the loss of love from men. Even that I understood as a child. And in Baxter, youth would be served and perhaps she could be forgiven the lies because time does not stand still for anyone, especially it does not stand still for a starlet. Notable in supporting roles are Thelma Ritter and George Sanders, the former as Margo's maid and alter-ego Birdie, the latter as the cynical and barbed theater critic, Addison DeWitt (named perhaps with the 17th/18th century Brit wit and essayist Joseph Addison in mind), who escorts about town none other than a not-so-dumb blonde named Marilyn Monroe in her screen debut. The script, resplendent with some very sharp one-liners, was adapted from the story, "The Wisdom of Eve" (a bit of irony-on-the-square in the title perhaps) by Mary Orr and of course became the Broadway musical Applause (not yet a movie). Mankiewicz won Oscars for both his script and his direction, and Sanders won for Best Supporting Actor while the movie itself won for Best Picture over such fine films as Sunset Boulevard and Born Yesterday. Both Davis and Baxter were nominated for Best Actress but lost out to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday. Bottom line: one of the great stories of the theater, a classic Hollywood film not to be missed.
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Summary: A Masterpiece For Any Age
Review: Take One Bette Davis, older, wiser and established as a Screen Presence. Add to this the scarilty intelligent writings of Mr. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with a dash of Innocence-Turned-Sour, supplied by Anne Baxter and George Sanders, and what do you have? The best film ever made in Hollywood, that's what. Briefly, the story - the titular Eve is played by Anne Baxter, a nobody who, through ambition, ruthlessness and downright deception, takes the reins of power from her idol, Margo Channing (Davis). She is helped willingly by vicious critic Addison DuWitt (George Sanders) and unwillingly by Margo's best friend Karen Richards (Celeste Holm). A battle for theatre supremacy ensues, culminating in Eve's undoing and Margo's emotional completion. The genius of 'Eve' is what must be the happiest marriage of Actors to Parts in movie history. Davis and Baxter couldn't be more perfectlymatched to their roles, a fact that is evident in their wonderfully believable portrayals of these women. Similarly brilliant is the silky George Sanders as the malevolent Addison DuWitt - his deep, chocolate-like voice and perfectly bitter facial expressions are the absolute and perfect traits of the character of DuWitt. They play their parts with gusto, Baxter's malevolence and innocence are shocking in their contrast, and Davis hurls her insults and histrionics with power, while her more tender scenes are heart-wrenching and believable. Sanders is a gem - the jaded & cynical Addison becomes more than a mere secondary player in his capable hands, and we find ourselves cheering him on in the final scenes of the movie. The true, real star of 'All About Eve' is the script. Never before, and never since, has a Hollywood script been so loaded with intelligent jokes, insight and spirit. It's more than dialogue, it's narrative, depth, and development too. Dialogue is hurled so thick and so fast that each time we watch 'Eve', we discover something new, a joke or a line or a character trait that we previously didn't notice. Such a script could so easily have been cumbersome and difficult, but the talents of Davis, Baxter, Sanders, Holm et al make it a terrifically interesting exercise in the power of the spoken word. Check out Margo's 'Fire and Music' and 'Not a Woman' sequences for proof of this. Listen carefully to Addison's opening speech and be amazed at its depth and intelligence. Direction is cursory, and unimportant in such a picture. It's fine, and allows the speech and stars free reign to do whatever they want. With performances and dialogie like this, however, superior directorial technique is not needed. I can't rave about this picture enough. I'll cut myself short by saying that each and every performance is at the very least, excellent, and at the very best, amazing. If you have to beg, borrow, steal or sneak into a theatre, see 'All About Eve'. It;s just that good.
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Summary: The Most Evil Villian Ever!
Review: Great acting by the aging Bette, and the rest of the cast, especially Sanders, who with mannerisms and an aspect of superiority excellently plays a semi-removed, quizzical, and omniscient role. Not horror or adventure, but in my opinion this movie contains the most evil villian in the history of movies (at least of those I've seen). Some nice self-pot-shots at the Academy of Motion Pictures and the movies themselves in the beginning adds to irony. You won't know what's happening for the first half; you'll be thrilled to follow what you know may happen in the second; you won't know the end but you'll realize it had to be that way.
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Summary: A CLASSIC WITH GREAT STORYTELLING AND EXCELLENT PERFORMANCES
Review: "All About Eve" tells the story of a group of people whose life is the theater: Margo Channing (Bette Davis) an aging diva, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), Margo's favorite director, Lloyd Richards (Hugh Harlowe) a writer, and Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), Lloyd's wife and Margo's best friend. Joining this group of people are Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), an actress wannabe with great ambition and intelligence, and Addison De Witt (George Sanders), an aggressive theater critic. "All About Eve" keeps the status of classic mainly for two reasons: an excellent screenplay and magnificent and unforgettable performances. The movie is entertaining from beginning to end, each scene presents great dialogues, the characters have huge depth, and if someone asks for more, Marilyn Monroe appears in a small role. "All About Eve" is recommendable for those who enjoy good stories and classic films.
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