“Those of you who do not read, attend the theater, listen to unsponsored radio programs, or know anything of the world in which you live, it is perhaps necessary to introduce myself.”
How do you even begin talk about All About Eve, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s definitive showbiz satire that set the template for a thousand imitators and homages? All About Eve captured the battle between the established star and the hungry young talent in a way that no film ever had before, and no film since has ever existed outside of its shadow. Do you start with that script, that perfectly-calibrated machine of snarled threats and (barely) veiled insults? Do you start with the performances, anchored by the dueling poles of Bette Davis’ fracturing leading lady Margot Channing opposite Anne Baxter’s rosy-cheeked but ice-blooded Eve Harrington? Or do you start with George Sanders as the drawling viper of a theater critic Addison DeWitt, a man who wields words the way others might daggers.
All About Eve is one of those films that has been so wholly absorbed by the culture that it can be difficult for a newcomer to approach it as just a film. I certainly felt a degree of intimidation when I sat down with it, not sure if any film could live up to such a sterling reputation and legacy. This is, after all, the film that won Best Picture instead of Sunset Blvd.
But All About Eve is no stuffy chamber piece, no dryly mounted piece of ‘Important’ cinema. It’s a rowdy showbiz comedy, and a bawdy catfight, and a sweeping romance, and a chilling character study of a criminal mind, and finally a horror story that cocks a knowing eyebrow at the way entertainment chews up and spits out talent.
“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”
All About Eve begins long after whatever the narrative fireworks have faded out. Baxter’s Eve is the star of Broadway, capping off a meteoric rise to the height of her field and fame. As the award is presented, everyone who Eve vanquished on her way to this triumph watches on, slumped, weary, and angry.
Learning just where that animosity comes from forms the bulk of the film, via flashbacks narrated in turns by DeWitt, Channing, and baffled showbiz wife Karen Richards (Celeste Holm). Through these shifting perspectives, we learn that Karen stumbled across Eve one night as the young woman lurked outside the theater following one of Margo’s shows, looking every inch the starstruck out-of-towner quivering with awe for the big city actress.
Eve happens to come at a time of both great success and great fragility for Margo. She’s headlining another hugely successful play, but she’s passed 40 and feels the clock ticking down on her life as a leading lady even as her social circle insists she’s worrying over nothing. Margo’s in a relationship with a younger man, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), and terrified constantly that everything she holds dear might evaporate at any moment.
Enter Eve. She’s got a sob story and apparently nothing else in her mind and heart except a singular devotion to Margo. She rapidly inserts herself into Margo’s life and career, eventually making moves that seem designed to edge Margo out and supplant her.
“That’s one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not: being a woman. Sooner or later, we’ve got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we’ve had or wanted.”
While the men in All About Eve hold their own with aplomb, especially the deliciously cruel Sanders, the soul of the film lies in the interplay between Davis, Baxter, and Holm. Davis came to this film hungry, her Hollywood stardom long sense faded and the label of ‘difficult’ more or less unshakeable. She attacks the Mankiewicz script like she’s visiting all-you-can-eat buffet after being lost in the desert for forty days, sinking her teeth into every jagged bit of meanness that Margo gets to snarl and purr. But Davis lets you past that veneer, cracking Margo’s defenses open so the audience can understand the vulnerabilities that no other character is ever allowed to witness.
Arguably the only one who sees how fragile Margo is, the only one who truly understands her, is Eve. It’s a very deft performance by Baxter, spending much of the early goings pointedly fading into the background and drawing as little attention as possible. Eve is a creation of Eve, and Baxter is careful to always let you see the calculations happening underneath the “Aw shucks” demeanor. When the mask finally comes off and the true Eve emerges, it’s actually chilling, and Baxter makes a conniving villain for the ages.
And finally, Holm rounds out the central cast as a woman whose urge to play Mother Hen to all the silly theater people with their egos and their hang-ups is really a cover for her own insecurity over the fact that she married into this life and this world and can lose it at any point. It’s Karen who becomes the moral center at the heart of the film, the ethical barometer who points to which way our sympathies are meant to shift. If Holm doesn’t get to rattle off as many perfectly-crafted zingers as the others (though she gets some of the best) she still finds a number of poignant notes in a character that could have read as a worrywart drip.
(Sidenote: All About Eve also features a short, very funny appearance by Marilyn Monroe. The Monroe affect hadn’t quite been figured out just yet, and it’s oddly moving and sad to see her as part of this ensemble, a talented young actress standing toe to toe with stars and giants and proving she can measure up right alongside them.)
“Imagine, to know every night that different hundreds of people love you. They smile, their eyes shine, you’ve pleased them. They want you. You belong. Just that alone is worth anything.”
Criterion’s presentation of the film is as exceptional as you could want, but their packaging for the new edition is a rare miss for the company. All About Eve’s Criterion comes in a weirdly dense box you have to unpack, and then the disc itself is wedged onto a piece of rubbery plastic you have to wrestle to get loose. I’m not sure who decided that now was the time to reinvent the wheel, but I was relieved to see other people lamenting this design.
But the movie itself is above reproach. All About Eve has lost none of its bite no matter how much time has passed or how often it has been copied. And like its characters, there are moments where the film drops its guard and reveals that beneath the poison-tongued banter and smiling misanthropy there is a true and sincere understanding of the need to perform and create, and the push and pull between creative voices and the audience those creators fear, resent, and need.
Even as All About Eve lacerates the romantic view of a stagebound celebrity life, Mankiewicz understands why that romance is so appealing, so lasting. That push-and-pull between the dream and the messy, often ugly work that goes into creating it is at the heart of All About Eve, and it all but assures that we’ll be watching and falling for this movie for decades still to come.
