Rating: 
Summary: DESSERT
Review: "ALL ABOUT 'ALL ABOUT EVE'" is a nice treat for lovers of movies, especially lovers of great movies, which ALL ABOUT EVE certainly is--great in every respect: acting, direction and, above all, in its literate and witty script. When I say that this volume is a "nice treat" I do not want any readers to think that it is as satisfying or gratifying as the movie, itself. It is what a nice dessert is to a rich, fulfilling meal. If you've seen and loved Joseph L. Mankiewicz's film, then you might want to pick up this book to scim through afterwards or to read in big or small chunks. But one can't really only eat the dessert--it should be the sweet AFTER the main course."ALL ABOUT 'ALL ABOUT EVE'" is more for lovers of Trivia than it is for lovers of pertinent and important movie-history facts. Is it really important for you to know that the best friends in the movie, played by Bette Davis and Celeste Holm, were barely on civil speaking terms? Is it truly necessary for you to know that Davis and her leading man Gary Merrill lived their hot-blooded, tempestuous romance off-screen as well as on-screen? Is it absolutely pertinent for you to know who the now-forgotten European actress is whom the character of 'Margo Channing' (the Bette Davis character) was based on in the original novel by Mary Orr? Do you really want to know about all the hirings and firings of the second-rate Broadway musical which is based on this altogether first-rate movie? If so, this is definitely the book for you. What turned me off was Sam Staggs' decision to put into his "history" book, his own personal, critical opinions of various performances, films, scripts and plays. In this kind of book, it seems to me, facts--the author's documented research-- are what are important, not his own opinions. Also, in a first quick scimming, I found a few mistakes, one of which is not trivial at all--it is a matter of authorship: Lee Adams is given credit by Staggs for writing the lyrics to the song "Tomorrow" from the long-running Broadway musical ANNIE when, actually, the lyricist is Martin Charnin. The front cover blurb declares that ALL ABOUT EVE is the "bitchiest film ever made!" It is, of course, much more than that. It is blistering and brilliant in conception and execution and, because of videotape tapes and DVD's future viewers will be able to watch this classy, funny, bitter, knowing look into the hearts of a group of people who love and hate one another, who romance and betray, who bolster up and rip apart one another, all in the name of The Theatre.
Rating: 
Summary: Everything you wanted to know and then some
Review: All About Eve is a cult film, a camp classic and an all-around tremendous movie that won six Oscars in 1950. It influenced the making of motion pictures to come and was the inspiration of the play "Applause." Somehow nobody wrote THE book on "All About Eve," its inspiration, its making, its reception and following, and how it lives on today--not until now. Now we have All About "All About Eve" and it's everything a fan could want. Author Sam Staggs did a huge amount of painstaking research for this book, especially noteworthy because all of this fifty-year-old movie's principal players are dead (with one notable exception: Celeste Holm, who would not grant him an interview). Staggs locates the kernel of the movie in a magazine story, "The Wisdom of Eve," about a conniving young woman who befriends and then betrays an insecure older actress, "Margola Cranston." He goes beyond the magazine story to find the actual, real-life "Eve" figure and interviews her, finding that life and art are not necessarily the same. All About "All About Eve"'s book jacket calls the film "the bitchiest film ever made." (There is room for disagreement--what about "Stage Door"? "The Women?" "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"?) But the movie was a solid career-starter for Marilyn Monroe as Miss Caswell, "a graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Arts." Otherwise, Staggs' thesis is controversial, and probably makes Celeste Holm furious: "For others in the cast--Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Gary Merrill, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, and for [writer/director Joseph] Mankiewicz himself--All About Eve was the climax. . . . If not for this movie, half the cast would be forgotten." Pretty harsh stuff. After its thunderous critical and box-office success, "Eve" went on to become the movie that never really faded from conscious-ness thanks to revivals and TV broadcasts. As Staggs says, "[t]he subtext has beguilded several generations of devotees, largely gay men, who have 'read' the film as though it beamed a limelight into the closet of their hearts." Margo Channing, woman on the edge; Birdie Coonan, the buddy with common sense; and Addison DeWitt, serpentine critic, have their camp charms delineated here. Some critics have said that at 340 pages of text All About "All About Eve" may be too much of a good thing. Take this simple test: Of course everyone knows that "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night" comes from the movie. Do you also thrill to lines like "Shucks, and I sent my autograph book to the cleaners," "Eve evil, Little Miss Evil," or "The minutes will fly like hours"? If you do, then this book is for you. It's a great read, and to turn Addison DeWitt's quip rightside-up where it belongs, the hours will fly like minutes.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS LADY EVE DESERVES APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE!
Review: Buckle your seat belts ... it's gonna be a bumpy night ahead! Bumpy because author Sam Staggs has written a warts-and-all, behind-the-scenes look at one of the Hollywood's greatest and wittiest films. The film won six Oscars, and was nominated for a titanic total 14 of the golden naked men, a record broken only recently by "Titanic." All the bitchery, butchery and backstage babble is here: From the performance that revived the flailing career of star Bette Davis to the introduction of a starlet by the name of Marilyn Monroe. Applause! Applause!
Rating:
Summary: FOR THE FANS....
Review: Fans of "All About Eve" will enjoy this exploration of the making of a classic. It's hard to put down and consistently entertaining. A perfect companion piece for the film as the backstage story of a backstage story of life in the theater from a life in Hollywood viewpoint. Celeste Holm's remarks are particularly revealing. You could say this is a bitchy look at a bitchy movie and it's well worth the read. Don't miss this one.
Rating:
Summary: FOR THE FANS....
Review: Fans of "All About Eve" will enjoy this exploration of the making of a classic. It's hard to put down and consistently entertaining. A perfect companion piece for the film as the backstage story of a backstage story of life in the theater from a life in Hollywood viewpoint. Celeste Holm's remarks are particularly revealing. You could say this is a bitchy look at a bitchy movie and it's well worth the read. Don't miss this one.
Rating:
Summary: More of All About Eve
Review: If you want more of All About Eve that goes beyond just watching it again, this is the book for you. This isn't any kind of scholarly analysis, nor is it a work of pure gossip. It's an intelligent and informed discussion of how this brilliant film came to be. It's purely shocking how every single part could have gone to several others, fascinating and sometimes sad to read how these great actors interacted with each other. Staggs also includes discussion of the short story on which the film was based, and discussion of the reality on which that story was based. I enjoyed knowing that all the more since I wasn't really familiar with Broadway Theater of the time or its great stars. We also learn that there was a sequel short story More About Eve. My only disappointment with All About All About Eve was that the author didn't see fit to include the short story, or its follow-up in the book, nor even to explain why he didn't. That would have been very interesting reading.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite a mass of fire and music, but a good read.
Review: In All About All About Eve, Sam Staggs tells of the birth, life and legend of one of the greatest films ever made (and certainly the best screenplay--in English at least). We get good looks at the personalities and paranoia of Joseph Mankiewicz, Bette Davis, Celeste Holm, Marilyn Monroe, George Sanders and Mrs. Sanders a.k.a. Zsa Zsa Gabor who turns out to be more hot-headed than Bette or a truckload of paprika.
Staggs' detailing of the process of the film is quite interesting and often bitchy fun. He gives the same treatment to the 1970 musical play "Applause" which is based on AAE. His analysis of the script, costumes, music and production design are also interesting. Where the book breaks down is in his pseudo-scholarly explanation of the subtexts, the films latent lesbian strain and its "camp" and ongoing appeal to gay men. These subtexts cannot be denied, but Staggs stretches credulity in some of his attempts to justify them. More knowledge of the practicalities of film making and the director's methods would have kept Staggs out of this trap. For example, photographing Randy Stuart in profile was probably dictated by her use of a candlestick phone rather than the need to show her as an incomplete woman. Many of Staggs’ painstakingly complied coincidences and connections will illicit an "oh brother" from some readers.
A close reading can be used to justify just about anything. On page 311 Staggs describes the meeting between Lauren Bacall and Joe Mankiewicz during her run in Applause. Staggs concludes his report with the sentence "Or was he just being kind?" By this Staggs must be implying that there had been a love affair between Bacall and Mankiewicz in the Forties or Fifties. Why else would he quote Steven Sondheim's song "Losing my Mind" about a long ago passion that never came to full fruition? Of course the author means no such thing, but I can read it that way if I want to.
All About All About Eve makes a cozy companion to the film and can help you draw more meaning, appreciation and pleasure from the masterpiece...
Rating:
Summary: A great book on Hollywood that reads like a novel.
Review: Juicy, irresistible reading. A great story about one of the great movies that's also the story of Hollywood in microcosm. It's packed with larger-than-life characters like Bette Davis, George Sanders, Darryl Zanuck, and of course Marilyn Monroe, and plenty of lesser-known but no less fascinating figures, like Elizabeth Bergner, the real-life Margo Channing upon whom the original story was based. It's also an intriguing mystery (was there a real Eve and who was she?)with an intriguing, satisfying wrapup--and with an ironic twist at the end. And the author tells his story in a unique, dramatic way, in the form of a novel, and weaves actual quotes in a way that you'll find hard to believe--but they're all documented. Amazing. All in all, one of the best and most enjoyable Hollywood books I've ever read. It would make a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Marilyn is star ! -Marilyn Monroe(Garry Hixon)
Review: Marilyn shines in this one, she outdoes everybody, even upstaging Bette Davis, there all betting on how many men go into marilyns hotel room, a pretty good book, Marilyn has so many! Reminds me of todays stars and how they envy the public, no privacy, no anonymity, they can't go back and be a waitress, etc. I think Morisa Tomei and Drew Barrymore would be a good bet to write a new version about 2002-they could call it, Cinderella 2:Dreams come true- the most self-centered movie made in modern times about some obviously new Marilyn Monroe. Who she is in this century is obviously anonimous, and a local, which so quite obviously infuriates Hollywood even more. This book is a crack up, If you buy it, pass on the word that everyone in this book is jealous of Marilyn Monroe- except of course Marilyn...
Rating:
Summary: Title Sums It All Up
Review: Sam Staggs does indeed cover All About "All About Eve". This is book is directly aimed at only those fans who cannot get enough and will seem too much for the casual fans (if such creatures exist) of the movie All About Eve. In other words, much of this book seems aimed at gay men who wallow in the high artistic camp of what All About Eve has become. In this respect, it is quite a thorough joy, as the history of the true story behind the movie is presented, the original short story, and then into the heart of the book, the filming of the movie (Celeste Holm comes in for perhaps too hard a time because of the author's personal feelings towards her and her attitude toward his book. Her actual celluloid performance was perfect.) The remainder of the book follows the growing legend of the film and the creation of the musical, Applause, based on it. It is a breezy, fun read without a single bumpy night in sight.
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