1950: All About Eve

I have always been a little fascinated with the glitz and glam of old Hollywood and Broadway. Actually, this is an interest that really surfaced in my twenties, and I’m not so much interested in the lifestyles, but more specifically the interactions between old celebrities, the lost art of signing and dancing, and the attire. So I especially enjoy an old Hollywood film that deals with itself or old Broadway.

Our 1950 Best Picture Winner, All About Eve falls into the old Broadway category, and covers the darker behind-the-scenes conniving that sometimes accompanied a rise to the top. The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankievicz. It stars Bette Davis as successful but aging stage actress Margo Channing, Anne Baxter as the seemingly mousy, self-depricating Eve Harrington, and George Sanders as the equally conniving stage critic Addison DeWitt.

The film opens with young Eve Harrington receiving an award for high achievement in stage acting, and then backtracks to follow Margo, Bill, Karen, and Lloyd, a small group of longtime theater friends and how Eve Harrington inserted herself into their lives.

For most of the film, we follow two corresponding story arcs. We see Margo wrestle with her age, her success as an actress, struggle to figure out who is apart from her stage persona, and what it means to be a woman. In her fear of being replaced by a younger specimen in all areas of her life, she pushes away her longtime, but much younger boyfriend, Bill Sampson.

Meanwhile, Eve weasles her way into every part of the lives of these friends, playing the part of mousy superfan with overdramatic, self-deprecating humility. However, in a fit of frustration with her friend Margo who evidently has these fits of bitchy self-struggle regularly, Karen accidentally hands Eve exactly what she wants on a silver platter and is subsequently sort of blackmailed into continuing to help Eve’s rise to fame. Eve knows exactly what she’s doing.

Until she throws herself at Margo’s boyfriend. Despite Margo’s insecurity at her age and fear of being replaced, Bill adores Margo for the woman offstage as well as on. My favorite interaction of the film.

Bill tells Eve, “When I want something, I want to go after it. I don’t want it coming after me.” When she turns, taken aback, he continues. “Don’t cry. Just consider it an incomplete forward pass.”

Ouch. Dang.

And then Eve commits herself professionally to the film critic, Addison DeWitt, only to discover that he’s been playing her as much as she’s been playing everyone else. It’s a dark, satisfying ending.

This film is a commentary on how we idolize actors, yet rarely question how they got there. Behind the scenes can be as brutal as on stage is glamourous. Eve got her achievement award, but at what cost?

Themes:

What it means to be a woman

Loyal friendships are worth preserving, more than the pursuit of fame