All About Eve

Last night I watched All About Eve. For the second time in my little project , I watched a classic which I had never seen before ( I’m not sounding like much of movie buff am I?).  This is the sort of movie that you don’t see much anymore in the mainstream. By that I mean it’s a grown up film that relies on sharp dialogue and layered characters to build its tension rather than violence or  sex. Don’t get me wrong, both of those elements can be very useful in telling a story but let’s be honest, often times they are a crutch that is employed to try to make a dull story stand up on its own two feet.

In the movie Eve Harrington (Ann Baxter) is a seemingly star struck, naive young woman who works her way into the life of Broadway star Margo Channing ( Bette Davis). Like the proverbial camel’s nose, she begins to wield more and more influence as she manipulates Margo’s best friend Karen (Celeste Holm), Margo’s fiancé and play director Bill (Gary Merrill) and Karen’s playwright husband Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe) in order to achieve her ambitions. All of this is observed by theater critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) who sees all this as an opportunity to further his own agenda.

The movie is worth watching just to see Bette Davis’ performance. Her ability to present a strong and seemingly egotistical character suddenly forced to come to terms with her weaknesses and insecurities is exceptional. She allows the audience to sympathize with her without falling into melodrama and without losing the diva at the heart of her character.

The other stand out performance (at least for me) is that of George Sanders. While he is certainly never likable he is a lot of fun to watch and Sanders carried it off with surly abandon.

Neither of these performances would have been possible without the film’s outstanding script. It contains Davis’ most famous line; “Fasten your seatbelts, its going to be a bumpy night” but that is simply one example from a movie that is full of great dialogue.

Again, as I approached this movie I read some reviews and did a little background. What I read was overwhelmingly positive. Again, I was not disappointed.