Movie Review – All About Eve

All About Eve (1950)
Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

My supporters at Patreon voted, and February’s month-long film series is “Movies About Movies.” This means we will be watching and reviewing films all about various aspects of the industry, mostly narrative, but one documentary thrown in that was the seed of this series. We begin with one of the great American films, a piece of cinema that has rippled through popular culture since its debut. All About Eve emerged from a real-life incident where a stage actress allowed a young fan to become a part of her household staff. Things eventually went south, and the young fan became a toxic element, actively trying to undermine the woman she admired. This was related to the author Mary Orr, who turned it into a short story, which became the basis for this screenplay.

Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is 40 and starting to worry about aging out of her profession or, even worse, getting cast as a matronly old lady. She’s introduced to Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), a young fan who has attended every performance of Margo’s latest play and stands outside the exit every night hoping to catch a glimpse of her favorite actress. It’s the kind of flattery that hooks Margo, and she decides to keep the fawning Eve around, much to the chagrin of her maid Birdie (Thelma Ritter). Eve has a real sob story about growing up in poverty in Wisconsin, losing her husband in WWII, and then finding Margo’s work as a solace in all that pain. As things get worse, Eve’s true intentions come into question, and before you know it, Margo finds herself fading and the spotlight shifting to this new upstart.

When the end credits roll, you will have zero doubts about why this film is popular with drag queens. Bette Davis embodies much of the stage diva ethos that drives those larger-than-life personalities. The rivalry that grows between Margo and Eve is the sort of backstage sniping and plotting that fuels the best dramas. Both actresses are performing their asses off here, and while it sounds ludicrous to say that anyone could match Bette Davis, Anne Baxter has a big speech near the end of the film that had my jaw on the floor. Baxter can play a meek, humble person and transition throughout the movie into a terrifying figure, someone willing to utterly ruin people she called her friends to get ahead. Feels very American.

There’s also a palpable sexual tension between Margo and Eve throughout the movie. While Eve makes moves to try and split up Margo and her beau Bill, the sexual tension exists between the two women. Eve is obsessed not with just being a star but with Margo, and that desire morphs into something bizarre as she seeks to become her idol. The reason Eve pursues sex with Bill is not that she thinks he’s particularly attractive but because Margo has had him, and in having Bill, she comes closer to being with Margo sexually. At a certain point, Eve gets what she wants, and then the glitter of Margo fades. Eve realizes she’s bigger than her one-time idol, and the film gives us a sly twist in the ending that this will all repeat itself.

Bette Davis gives nuance to Margo that I’m not sure would be present in a contemporary production. I mean, Showgirls was essentially a remake of this from Eve’s point of view, and it is not a movie associated with subtlety. Davis’s Margo is a very unlikeable person; she’s a spoiled child, and she is nasty even when all the attention is on her, yet we still empathize with her when the life she’s built starts to slip from her fingers. We watch as Margo not only loses her spot as a revered actress but is no longer the star of her life. Eve breaks up marriage and destroys friendships. Margo survives but sees life from an entirely new perspective.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s script here is a masterpiece. He has penned such rich, luxuriant dialogue for his two stars, who are eating it up. In Eve, he has fashioned a person without a superego of any kind; this person has no morals or ethics, just pure survival at any cost. There is no time Eve is unmasked; every conversation she has & every relationship she cultivates is part of a lifelong performance. By the end of the picture, her background comes into question. Did she really struggle and lose a husband? Or is it true that we don’t know anything about this person and where she came from?

As for the entertainment industry, All About Eve is a study by someone deeply embedded in the performing arts, commenting on the type of personalities they saw rising to the top. They were not good people but often ruthless ones. When Eve aligns herself with acerbic critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), she is propelled to a new level of fame & power. DeWitt encourages her worst instincts because it allows him to snipe back at Margo. He even tries to blackmail Eve, but by the end of the picture, it is clear he isn’t going to come out on top of this mess either. 

If you have yet to see this, you should ASAP. It is one of those movies that is so foundational to contemporary media. It’s also a damn enjoyable movie, full of the type of performances that keep you captivated.