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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