ALL ABOUT EVE: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox, 1950) Fox Home Video

BEST PICTURE – 1950
The movie that took Bette Davis’ film career off life support and launched as memorable a backstage feud between three women not even included in its glittering ensemble of players, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s bitchy masterpiece, All About Eve (1950) remains a scintillating exposé, not only about the follies and foibles of the theater sect, but the ongoing struggle and strife of humanity – oft, to behave in less than flattering, to downright inhumane ways. Mankiewicz’s screenplay may have been picture-perfect – indeed, Davis, well-known for taking other’s authorship into her own hands, instead, herein, declared it faultless, adhering to Mankiewicz’s prose as though they were the Bible. But Mankiewicz, already having won back to back Academy Awards for writing and directing A Letter to Three Wives (1949), had actually borrowed for his inspiration from Mary Orr’s short story, ‘The Wisdom of Eve’ – first published in Cosmopolitan Magazine. Although Orr, an actress with aspirations of becoming a great writer, had, in fact, penned several short stories and was working on her first play at the time of ‘Eve’s’ publication, the subsequent triumph of both her thinly veiled fiction and Mankiewicz’s accolade-heavy movie would spark an unanticipated 50-year rivalry between Orr and one, Martina Lawrence; the real Eve in this storytelling.
Exactly how Lawrence and Orr became sworn enemies – and almost came to blows after writer, Harry Hahn arranged for their supposed reconciliation over cocktails at Sardis – involved another star, Elizabeth Bergner. The Austro-Hungarian born Bergner, a glamorous creature, had been a sensation in German movies, crossing the Atlantic in the late 1930’s with daydreams of making an even bigger splash in picture-making on this side of the Atlantic. Alas, her thick European accent did not advance these aspirations on celluloid. And although she would launch a fairly lucrative stage career, Bergner and the movies never came together. Meanwhile, Martina Lawrence had managed to ingratiate herself as a personal assistant to Paul Czinner, the Hungarian-born Brit writer/producer who also happened to be Bergner’s husband. Lawrence was indispensable in both their lives, running interference and fielding offers, managing the couple’s professional itineraries and private lives behind the scenes. At some point, the honeymoon between this model of efficiency and the couple ended, after Bergner began to suspect Lawrence of harboring ulterior motives. Bergner shared these suspicions with Orr at a dinner party and Orr, who found it fascinating, set about to concoct a ‘fictional’ account, later pitched to Cosmo as ‘The Wisdom of Eve.’  Upon its publication, Lawrence was none too thrilled – perhaps seeing far too much of herself in print, and able to recognize, either the truth in it, or merely resentful of the fact that, in reworking the rumors, Orr had managed to make ‘Eve’ (a.k.a. Lawrence) the villain of the piece.
And thus, a battle royale began – one that would boil over into an all-out catfight in 1993 during the aforementioned détente arranged by Harry Hahn; Orr, defending her work and claiming she had never set out to besmirch anyone, and Lawrence, carpet-hauling Orr as a hack writer who took advantage of a casual conversation, spinning it into an insidious untruth that had badly maligned her character and reputation. Whatever the truth in this, these ladies were not to reconcile their differences on that afternoon, nor ever. Indeed, after Mankiewicz had shed an even greater light on the story with his record-breaking movie, Lawrence bitterly retreated to Venice, Italy (according to Orr, Lawrence came after her with a butter knife, attempting blackmail for monies needed to make her journey abroad). Perhaps quite by chance, and decades later in 1990, Lawrence contacted Mankiewicz to tell him her side of the story, directing his attentions to Bergner’s biography as proof. In one of those Hollywood ironies that never fails to impress with its uncanny verisimilitude, Anne Baxter’s Eve came to embody Lawrence’s acrimony on the screen; something Mankiewicz referenced as ‘bitch virtuosity.’  Whatever her motives, Lawrence did not try to appeal to the director again.
By 1949, Joseph L. Mankiewicz was at the top of his game…at least, professionally. Regrettably, there were dark shadows looming over Mankiewicz’s outwardly sunny persona. His brother, Herman J. Mankiewicz, once a noteworthy screenwriter whose big mouth and alcoholism effectively derailed his chances in Hollywood, was well on his way to self-destructing. Indeed, Herman – their father’s favorite son – would barely live four more years. Worse, Joe Mankiewicz was coming off a very stormy liaison with Judy Garland, despite being married to Rose Stradner; the deeply troubled Viennese actress who had effectively given up her own career abroad to follow Mankiewicz to Hollywood, believing she would pick up where she had left off professionally. Despite being a very fine actress, Stradner failed to catch on in anything more substantial than bit parts. Effectively retiring from the screen to play the title role of wife and mother, Stradner’s toehold on reality continued in steep decline until 1958 when she took her own life. Exactly how much Mankiewicz’s well-known carousing outside their marital bond took its toll on Stradner’s psyche remains open for discussion. Undoubtedly, it made for a very unhappy marriage and ended tragically.
All About Eve is so perfectly cast, one easily forgets the pivotal part of aging actress, Margo Channing almost went to Claudette Colbert; mutually agreed upon by Mankiewicz and 2oth Century-Fox studio mogul, Darryl F. Zanuck who, upon reading Mankiewicz’s screenplay, was as certain Fox contract player, Jeanne Crain should play the part of the unscrupulous Eve Harrington. Mankiewicz resisted this, as Crain’s on-screen persona exuded a more wholesome appeal. Mankiewicz wanted an actress who could pivot from seemingly innocent ingenue to supremely venomous bitch in heels, and believed Anne Baxter was his Eve. Baxter had already won a Best Supporting Oscar for 1947’s The Razor’s Edge and was well-regarded by Zanuck too. But Bette Davis as Margo Channing?!? This was an entirely different matter. Davis and Zanuck had, in fact, not reconciled their differences ever since the actress walked out on her duties as President of the Motion Picture Academy in 1941, with Zanuck famously declaring then, “You’ll never work in this town again!” But the 1940’s – or rather, the first half of the decade – had been very good to Davis’ film career; the actress, given carte blanche at Warner Bros. to pursue a legendary string of hits that buoyed her reputation as a consummate professional until the disastrous Beyond the Forest (1949). But even by 1946, Davis could see Jack Warner had lost interest in her career, or perhaps, had merely soured on her constant badgering, threats and histrionics to get her projects green lit. Indeed, with Joan Crawford’s arrival at that studio, Warner was to lean the more plum parts to Metro’s castoff, leaving Davis out in the cold.
Swallowing his pride, Zanuck telephoned Davis at home to offer her the role of a lifetime – but only after Claudette Colbert had severely damaged her back, forcing her into months of traction therapy. Davis may not have understood the reasons for Zanuck’s phone call, but she shrewdly recognized Mankiewicz’s screenplay as the best she had been offered in a very – VERY – long while. Learning of her casting, director Edmund Goulding, who had directed Davis in three of her greatest hits – 1939’s Dark Victory and The Old Maid, and, 1941’s The Great Lie, and had contributed to the screenplay of another Davis masterpiece, 1943’s Old Acquaintance – telephoned Mankiewicz with an ominous prediction: “This woman will grind you up into a fine powder and blow you away!” All evidence to the contrary, as Davis arrived on set full of vim and vigor, passionate for the opportunities to perform the work as written, and, with an even deeper admiration for Mankiewicz’s talents as a writer. The respect she exhibited for her director this time around was so profound, it instantly sparked a mutual admiration that made for a very worthwhile working experience between the two. Even decades later, Davis would wax affectionately about the experience of making the movie. “I owe it all to Joe…he resurrected me from the dead!”
The same level of professional courtesy could not be claimed where Davis’ affinity – or lack thereof – for co-star, Celeste Holm was concerned. Holm arrived the first day on set with an ebullient ‘hello’, only to be confronted by Davis’ glib, “Oh shit…polite manners.” Thereafter, neither got on. It ought to be noted, Holm could be just as caustic as Davis in a pinch. Indeed, Holm and Zanuck had parted company not long after her Oscar-winning performance in 1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement; Zanuck, firing his temperamental star, but again, forced to eat humble pie and hire her back to appear in All About Eve. Meanwhile, in yet another case of art imitating life, Bette Davis was accused by stage/screen diva, Tallulah Bankhead of aping her mannerisms as the fictional Broadway legend-in-her-own-time, Margo Channing. Reportedly, Davis’ introduction to Bankhead had been less than auspicious; Bankhead, acknowledging Davis, only as ‘the one who plays my parts in the movies.’ In reality, two of Bette’s biggest hits – Dark Victory, and The Little Foxes (1941) had been Bankhead star-making plays on Broadway. Like all of Mankiewicz’s great works, All About Eve is a female-centric exploration of the wiles women employ to get what they want in a man’s world. Mankiewicz always found women more fascinating than men. Yet, of all the juicy parts to grace All About Eve, the one that remained closest to Mankiewicz’s own heart was Addison DeWitt – the poisoned pen critic played with oily malevolence by George Sanders. Much of Mankiewicz’s own cynicism towards humanity in general and theater folk in particular is expressed by Sander’s sublime and insidious plotter. And Sanders, a great character actor, but with a terrible reputation as being a cad both on and off the set, plays Addison to the hilt – a tour de force performance that would win Sanders and the picture its only ‘acting’ Academy Award.
All About Eve is a movie of rare qualities, not the least, typified in Mankiewicz’s writing. It is a stage upon which sets the highest aspirations and lowest blows of a particular sect of pontificating vultures, each as eager and enterprising to outclass the rest. Interestingly, Mankiewicz begins his investigation into humanity’s mad inhuman noise with a sham awards ceremony. In 1950, the Sarah Siddon’s Society did not exist, nor the award given to Eve Harrington by its Master of Ceremonies. Although Sarah Siddon had been a renown 18th century tragedienne, her reputation in the 20th was practically nonexistent until All About Eve shed new light on her ancient craft. In what is perhaps the most curious bit of life imitating art, both the Sarah Siddon’s Society and all the good works that have since come to be associated with it (fundraising, scholarships, etc.) took its concrete form a scant two years after All About Eve’s premiere – modeled by a small, but eminent group of Chicago theater-goers (including actress Edith Luckett Davis, mother of Nancy Davis Reagan), on the movie’s exemplar. In its preliminary stages, Mankiewicz’s screenplay, originally entitled ‘Best Performance’ garnered Zanuck’s praise, enough for the mogul to undertake it as one of his ‘personally supervised’ productions. It is rumored Zanuck, not Mankiewicz, was responsible for the change in title, simply excising it from a line of dialogue heard in the movie’s prologue, “…but more about Eve, later. All about Eve, in fact.”
And so, we come to the tale itself, begun in the stuffy main hall of the Ambassador Hotel, the Sarah Siddon’s Award for distinction in the theater given to Miss Eve Harrington – a bright new find, certain to have a long and illustrious career ahead of her…perhaps. For the foundation on which Eve has constructed her art is a lie. She has conned and clawed her way to the top, employing an unscrupulousness, as easily to walk in, as on and over the hearts of those who implicitly bought into her sob story about being a war widow, compromised by a lascivious boss in a brewery, and lurching from the shadows to linger around the stage door nightly, merely to catch a glimpse of her favorite actress, Margo Channing. To hear Eve tell it, she has never had any great love except the theater and Margo. Touched by her story, Margo’s best friend, Karen (Celeste Holm), wife of playwright, Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) inadvertently stirs a hornet’s nest, destined to suffer the sting of her ‘good deed’. Eve is introduced to Margo, her personal assistant, Birdie Coonan (the marvelous Thelma Ritter), Lloyd, and, Margo’s boyfriend, Bill Samson (Gary Merrill); the latter, about to depart for an extended stay in California, working on a new movie for – wait for it – Darryl F. Zanuck. “Zanuck! Zanuck! Zanuck!” chirps Margo with casual disregard, “What are you two…lovers?” to which Bill replies, “Only in some ways!”
Eve offers to manage Bill’s bags and the tickets at the airport, allowing Margo a few extra moments together before his departure. Promising Bill to look after Margo while he is away, Eve settles into Margo’s fashionable townhouse, immediately establishing herself as a fixture and a model of efficiency. While Margo is enthralled to have someone fuss over her, Birdie is thoroughly unimpressed. She forewarns Margo that Eve is not so much endeavoring to make her life easier as much as she is studying her like a textbook for some grander, hidden and more insidious design. While Margo resists believing the worst about Eve at first, her suspicions are stirred when Eve orchestrates a midnight phone call from California to New York for Bill’s birthday without first telling Margo about it. Upon Bill’s return home, Margo has plans for a grand party.  Producer, Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff) is most eager to have Margo sign on to do Lloyd’s next play, ‘Aged in Wood’. Margo, however, is reticent. After all, she has turned the big 4-0 but is yet again expected to play a girl in her twenties. While Max and Lloyd each suggest Margo is ageless, Margo succumbs to these anxieties about getting older in the public spotlight, offering “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Shortly thereafter, Margo gets quietly drunk. Her inhibitions lowered, she suspects and openly accuses Eve of worming her way into their lives. Eve takes her lumps and is apologetic to a fault. Meanwhile, poisoned pen theater critic, Addison DeWitt debuts his latest find, Miss Caswell (Marilyn Monroe), blatantly pushing her into flirtations with Max. In an upstairs bedroom, Eve cleverly corners Karen, hinting that while she is certainly contented with her role as Margo’s social secretary, she would prefer to be her understudy in the new play.
Karen plants this seed in Lloyd’s mind, believing Eve has done nothing except be the perfect personal assistant to Margo.  After some initial apprehensions, Max and Lloyd concur: Eve will understudy Margo…just without her ever knowing about it. After all, where is the harm? Margo has no intension of missing a single performance. So, the show goes on. Only Margo becomes bored with the material, and worse, begins to question Lloyd’s integrity as a playwright. Behind the scenes, Eve takes one of Margo’s dresses and, holding it against her, pretends to be the one taking the bows. Margo is slightly amused, especially after startling Eve from her daydream. Margo now confides her suspicions about Eve to Karen.  Too bad, Karen cannot see the truth in it. Believing her best friend’s anxieties are the result of needless jealousy, Karen decides to teach Margo a lesson, stranding them – and Lloyd – on an open road after a relaxing weekend in the country. While Lloyd goes off on foot for gas, Margo contemplates what her ambitions have wrought thus far. “Funny business, a woman's career,” she hypothesizes, “The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. 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. And in the last analysis, nothing's any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed, and there he is. Without that, you're not a woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings, but you're not a woman. Slow curtain, the end.”
Karen has already begun to feel guilty. But Margo is indifferent about missing the performance and Eve steps into the part, running off with it to great success. Addison is quietly amazed that all of the most prominent theater critics just happened to attend this, of all the performances; certain to sing Eve’s praises in their columns the next day. Afterward, Eve makes a play for Bill. But he rejects her outright. Now, Addison wisely begins to suspect the real puppet master among this brood is none other than Eve Harrington. To help the viper along, Addison writes a celebratory piece about Eve’s debut that, in tandem, heavily criticizes ‘other actresses of a certain age’ for their vanity in believing they can still pass for twenty-something on the stage. The review sticks in Margo’s craw and infuriates Karen. Nevertheless, Karen and Lloyd agree to meet Margo and Bill for drinks at the Stork Club where Margo announces she has finally decided to marry Bill. Their joy is tempered by the arrival of Eve on Addison’s arm. During dinner, Eve implores Karen to attend her in the powder room. At first reluctant, Karen is curious as to what Eve would want from her now and follows her into the private area. Now, Eve reveals her truest self and it proves as ugly and devious as it is determined. Eve wants the part of ‘Cora’ in Lloyd’s new play, ‘Footsteps on the Ceiling’ – already slated for Margo. When Karen refuses to help her, Eve threatens to reveal to everyone how Karen aided her in making Margo miss the performance. Her lifelong friendship with Margo on the threshold of being destroyed, Karen skulks back to her table, giddy and apprehensive. Meanwhile, Eve returns to Addison’s side, claiming she just had a casual conversation between old friends.
Margo drops a well-timed bombshell of her own. She does not want to play Cora after all. It is time to retire from the theater, to take life as it comes, and to invest all of her time and efforts on making Bill a happy home and wife. Amused beyond words by this gracious whim of fate that has suddenly removed her from the proverbial hook, Karen bursts into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Eve is cast as Cora. But the process by which she molds her performance is fraught with conflict and anger – railing against Bill and Lloyd and getting these long-time friends at each other’s throats. Just prior to the out-of-town tryouts in New Haven, Eve presents Addison with her next grand scheme; to steal Lloyd away from Karen, suggesting she already knows Lloyd is in love with her. Disgusted by Eve’s belief she can manipulate him as easily as everyone else, Addison strips bare the cold, hard facts about her otherwise fictional back story. There is no Eve Harrington. Only Gertrude Slescynski. She was never married to a dead war hero; rather, the mistress of a wealthy businessman who eventually had to pay her off to leave town. Bill never had romantic designs on her back then; neither, Lloyd now. As all that Eve has wrought disintegrates before her very eyes, Addison now lays all his cards on the table.  For his silence, also, his renewed investment in seeing her career take off like a meteor, Eve will ‘belong’ to Addison. She will not be marrying Lloyd or anyone else.
Although a tearful/fearful Eve, at first, nervously refuses to go on – Addison convinces her the only way out of this unhappy predicament is to agree to his terms. Begrudgingly, Eve does. We fast track to the present, Eve presented with the Sarah Siddon’s Award for excellence in the theater. As Eve accepts the honor, she feigns humility, thanking ‘her friends’ – including Karen, Margo, Lloyd and Bill. Although the audience gathered in the ballroom has absolutely no idea what has previously transpired, none of the aforementioned are buying Eve’s gratitude now. Indeed, it remains as hollow as the Award itself; Margo, astutely surmising at the end of Eve’s speech, she can always put the accolade where her heart ought to be. As the auditorium empties out, Eve is left to accompany Addison back to her fashionable apartment. Deciding to skip the post-presentation party being given in her honor, Eve is startled to find a young woman sleeping on her sofa inside the apartment.
The girl, Phoebe (Barbara Bates), innocently reports to be the President of her high school Eve Harrington Fan Club. Sneaking into the apartment while the cleaning lady was tidying up, Phoebe apologizes for having fallen asleep afterward. She also promises she has taken nothing that did not belong to her. As she seems quite genuine, Eve coolly allows the girl to remain, especially after Phoebe offers to help pack the trunk Eve intends to take on her trip to Hollywood. While Eve gets comfortable on a chaise in her bedroom, Phoebe also offers to answer the door buzzer, finding Addison on the other side holding Eve’s Sarah Siddon Award that she callously left in the back of the taxi. Amused by this junior miss, exuding sultry charm, Addison inquires whether she too might one day hope for such an honor. “More than anything in the world,” Phoebe replies. Addison departs with an insidious satisfaction, knowing Eve is about to be tricked in the same way she once played both Karen and Margo as fools. In the penultimate revelation, Phoebe is seen, dressing in the elegant robe Eve wore to accept her award, posing before a multi-paned mirror, and holding the award as if it were her own; the endless proliferation of reflected Eve’s bowing, promises the audience that no good end will come of it. Such is it in life, and most definitely, in show biz!
All About Eve remains a quintessentially urbane and sophisticated melodrama about show folk; a critique of their Teflon-coated smug superiority, held dear, yet precarious, and susceptible to usurpers from without. Mankiewicz’s movies are microcosmic character studies of humanity’s foibles. Yet, Mankiewicz is oft criticized for lacking the visual savvy of a ‘movie director’. There is something to this – as Mankiewicz’s screenplay construction is transparently suited to the 3-act structure of a play. Hence, his actors act while the camera merely serves to fill the frame with their performances, but without any undue flair to augment them. The spark and the magic are all due to the actors and the dialogue. That said, the mileage Mankiewicz gets from his in-depth deconstruction of art imitating life is a riveting indictment we cannot take our eyes off. So, the point about static camera work is moot, as Mankiewicz’s subtext, his electrifying speeches, cleverly timed to appear genuine, far outweighs any falsely perceived ‘lack’ in his camera prowess. Evidently, audiences and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were as enthralled by All About Eve – the picture receiving a record 14 Oscar nominations (a tally not tied until James Cameron’s Titanic, 1997).  However, that number is even more impressive when one stops to consider most of the categories Titanic was nominated in were not even available at the time All About Eve was paid the honor.
Regrettably, in the eleventh hour leading up to these nominations, Anne Baxter campaigned heavily for Zanuck to get her a Best Actress – rather than Best Supporting Actress - nod. This placed Baxter’s Eve in direct competition with Bette Davis – also nominated for Margo. In hindsight, it proved both actresses undoing, as the tie – a first, in Oscar history – was split down the middle; the Oscar going to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. Justifiably, Davis would always feel robbed, and, in years to follow, held Baxter accountable. If Davis, caught in the cross hairs of a bitter divorce from her third husband, continued to harbor resentment at losing out to Holliday, she at least took temporary solace in her affair with co-star, Gary Merrill (who was also married at the time). Their whirlwind of ‘fire and music’ culminated in an even more short-lived and volatile union. Today, All About Eve remains as fresh and ever-present, perhaps because the ruthlessness exhibited by its protagonists has only continued to proliferate during the intervening decades. In pop culture, where words like ‘instant classic’ are bandied about with a reckless disregard, to have lost any real meaning, All About Eve is deservedly and precisely that – a great movie that continues to hold up spectacularly well with the passage of time.
Fox Home Video's Blu-Ray rectifies the unfortunate and utterly painful DVD incarnations we have been forced to contend with for many years. Gone is that tired regurgitation of a gritty B&W image with blandly contrasted gray tones. Instead, we get a vibrant, sharp and very clean rendering in 1080p with superb preservation of the film's grain structure. Blacks are deep and solid. Whites are pristine. There are still instances where the image can look marginally soft and slightly out of focus. But overall, this is a marvelous effort. Once again, Fox has included two audio tracks; the original mono and a re-channeled stereo. While I am generally not a fan of re-purposed audio from mono stems, this pseudo-stereo does not sound awful and for many, will be the preferred choice when viewing the film. I still prefer the mono. Extras are all direct imports from Fox's 2-disc DVD release, including two commentary tracks (the better belonging to Sam Stagg who is comprehensive in his account of the production). We also get AMC Backstory – Ken Burns’ series that covers the making of the movie with all too brief snippets and sound bites, but gets the job done nonetheless. The best extras are ‘Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ a beautiful retrospective on the director’s career, and, Joseph L. Mankeiwicz: A Personal Journey. Cumulatively totaling nearly an hour, and with extensive reflections offered by Mankiewicz’s two children, this is a great tribute to the man.  Last, but certainly not least, is a video piece on the real Eve that brings the Lawrence/Orr/Berger saga to the forefront, and, a brief featurette on how the Sarah Siddon's Society came to be. Rounding out the extras are two vintage featurettes and the original theatrical trailer. Bottom line: All About Eve is a classic – period. This Blu-ray is a must have!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS

5+

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