all about eve movie review

All About Eve

Eve (Anne Baxter) and Margo (Bette Davis) in a showdown from "All About Eve." On the stairs behind them (from top to bottom): Celeste Holm, George Sanders and Marilyn Monroe.

Growing older was a smart career move for Bette Davis , whose personality was adult, hard-edged and knowing. Never entirely comfortable as an ingenue, she was glorious as a professional woman, a survivor, or a bitchy predator. Her veteran actress Margo Channing in “All About Eve” (1950) was her greatest role; it seems to show her defeated by the wiles of a younger actress, but in fact marks a victory: the triumph of personality and will over the superficial power of beauty. She never played a more autobiographical role.

Davis’ performance as a star growing older is always paired with another famous 1950 performance — Gloria Swanson’s aging silent star in “Sunset Boulevard.” Both were nominated for best actress, but neither won; the Oscar went to Judy Holiday for “ Born Yesterday ,” although Davis’ fans claimed she would have won if her vote hadn’t been split, ironically, by Anne Baxter, who plays her rival and was also nominated for best actress.

When you compare the performances by Davis and Swanson, you see different approaches to similar material. Both play great stars, now aging. Davis plays Margo Channing realistically, while Swanson plays Norma Desmond as a gothic waxwork. “ Sunset Boulevard ” seems like the better film today, maybe because it fits our age of irony, maybe because Billy Wilder was a better director than Joseph Mankiewicz . But Davis’ performance is stronger than Swanson’s, because it’s less mad and more touching. Davis was a character, an icon with a grand style, so even her excesses are realistic.

The movie, written by Mankiewicz, begins like “Sunset Boulevard” with a narration by a writer – -the theater critic Addison DeWitt ( George Sanders ), bemused, cynical, manipulative. He surveys the room at a theatrical awards dinner, notes the trophy reserved for Eve Harrington (Baxter), and describes the survivors of Eve’s savage climb to the top: her director Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), her writer Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), Lloyd’s wife Karen (Celeste Holm), who was her greatest supporter. And the idol she cannibalized, Margo. As the fatuous old emcee praises Eve’s greatness, the faces of these people reflect a different story.

The movie creates Margo Channing as a particular person, and Eve Harrington as a type. Eve is a breathless fan, eyes brimming with phony sincerity. She worms her way into Margo’s inner circle, becoming her secretary, then her understudy, then her rival. Faking humility and pathos is her greatest role, and at first only one person sees through it: crusty old Birdie ( Thelma Ritter ), Margo’s wardrobe woman. “What a story!” she snaps. “Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.”

Margo believes Eve’s story of hard luck and adoration; no actor has much trouble believing others would want to devote their lives to them. Good, sweet Karen also sympathizes with the girl, and arranges to strand Margo in the country one weekend so that Eve can go on as her understudy. Karen is repaid when Eve tries to steal her playwright husband, after an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to steal Margo’s fiancé, Bill. He is played by Merrill (Davis’ real-life husband), who turns her away with a merciless put-down: “What I go after, I want to go after. I don’t want it to come after me.”

Eve is a universal type. Margo plays at having an ego but is in love with her work — a professional, not an exhibitionist. She’s the real thing. But the sardonic tone of the film is set by Sanders, as DeWitt. He’s the principal narrator, and with his cigarette holder, his slicked-down hair and his flawless evening dress, he sees everything with deep cynicism. He has his own agenda; while Eve naively tries to steal the men who belong to the women who helped her, Addison calmly schemes to keep Eve as his own possession. Sanders, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor, lashes her in one of the movie’s most savage speeches: “Is it possible, even conceivable, that you’ve confused me with that gang of backward children you play tricks on? That you have the same contempt for me as you have for them?” And: “I am nobody’s fool. Least of all, yours.”

Glittering in the center of “All About Eve” is a brief supporting appearance by Marilyn Monroe. This film, and John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” earlier the same year, put her on the map; she was already “Marilyn Monroe,” in every detail. She appears at Margo’s party as DeWitt’s date, and he steers her toward the ugly but powerful producer Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff), advising her, “Now go and do yourself some good.” Monroe sighs, “Why do they always look like unhappy rabbits?”

It has been observed that no matter how a scene was lighted, Monroe had the quality of drawing all the light to herself. In her brief scenes here, surrounded by actors much more experienced, she is all we can look at. Do we see her through the prism of her legend? Perhaps not; those who saw the movie in 1950, when she was unknown, also singled her out. Mankiewicz helped create her screen persona when he wrote this exchange after the Monroe character sees Margo’s fur coat.

“Now there’s something a girl could make sacrifices for,” Monroe says.

“And probably has,” says the director.

“Sable,” Monroe explains.

“Sable?” asks the producer. “Did she say sable or Gable?”

Monroe replies: “Either one.”

If Monroe steals her own scenes, the party sequence contains Davis’ best work in the movie, beginning with her famous line, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Drinking too much, disillusioned by Eve’s betrayal, depressed by her 40th birthday, she says admitting her age makes her “feel as if I’ve taken all my clothes off.” She looks at Bill and bitterly says: “Bill’s 32. He looks 32. He looked it five years ago. He’ll look it 20 years from now. I hate men.”

It was believed at the time that Davis’ performance as Margo was inspired by Tallulah Bankhead. “Tallulah, understandably enough, did little to dispel the assumption,” Mankiewicz tells Gary Carey in the book More About All About Eve. “On the contrary, she exploited it to the hilt with great skill and gusto.” Press agents manufactured a feud between Davis and Bankhead, but Mankiewicz says neither he nor Davis was thinking of Bankhead when the movie was made. Davis could have found all the necessary inspiration from her own life.

Davis smokes all through the movie. In an age when stars used cigarettes as props, she doesn’t smoke as behavior, or to express her moods, but because she wants to. The smoking is invaluable in setting her apart from others, separate from their support and needs; she is often seen within a cloud of smoke, which seems like her charisma made visible.

The movie’s strength and weakness is Anne Baxter, whose Eve lacks the presence to be a plausible rival to Margo, but is convincing as the scheming fan. When Eve understudies for Margo and gets great reviews, Mankiewicz wisely never shows us her performance; better to imagine it, and focus on the girl whose look is a little too intense, whose eyes a little too focused, whose modesty is somehow suspect.

Mankiewicz (1909-1993) came from a family of writers; his brother Herman wrote “ Citizen Kane .” He won back-to-back Oscars for writing and directing “A Letter to Three Wives” in 1949 and “All About Eve” in 1950, and is also remembered for “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (1947), “The Barefoot Contessa” (1954) and “Guys and Dolls” (1955). He remained sharp-tongued all of his days. When “All About Eve” was recycled into the Broadway musical “Applause,” Mankiewicz observed that the studio had received “infinitely more” in royalties than it paid him for writing and directing the film. He said he had no complaints. The reason they have the “no refunds” sign in the theater ticket window, he said, is to keep the rubes from calling the cops.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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All about eve.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 3 Reviews
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Common Sense Media Review

By Nell Minow , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Classic movie about an ambitious woman.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this classic showbiz drama has some powerful messages about ambition and betrayal. Eve manipulates others to get what she wants and succeed, and other characters initially believe her. There's also some social drinking representative of movies of the era.

Why Age 12+?

Social drinking (sometimes to excess), some "I need a drink" responses

Any Positive Content?

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Social drinking (sometimes to excess), some "I need a drink" responses to stress.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents need to know that this classic showbiz drama has some powerful messages about ambition and betrayal. Eve manipulates others to get what she wants and succeed, and other characters initially believe her. There's also some social drinking representative of movies of the era. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

All About Narcissism

What's the story.

Margo Channing (Bette Davis), a Broadway diva beginning to show her age, meets the young fan who stands outside the theater after every performance (Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington). Taken by her devotion, humility, and hard luck story, Margo gives Eve a job as a gofer/secretary. At first, she is delighted, but later comes to realize that Eve is ruthless and will stop at nothing to steal Margo's career -- not to mention her fiancé (Gary Merrill as director Bill Simpson). Eve manipulates Margo's friends and colleagues, becomes her understudy, and finally, after scheming to keep her away from the theater, goes on in her place, after arranging for critics to be at her performance. She takes the starring role in a new production that would have been Margo's, and wins an award for it. But by then, Margo and her friends are back together, Eve is tied to a critic who is as ambitiously manipulative as she is, and as the movie ends, she too meets a devoted young fan who could be another Eve.

Is It Any Good?

ALL ABOUT EVE has one of the most exceptional and most literate scripts ever written (by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also directed). This is not just the finest backstage drama ever filmed, but also a compelling parable of ambition and loyalty. Bette Davis is brilliant as Margo, bringing both the ferocity and the vulnerability of Margo to life. No one can forget her at the beginning of her party: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." She is the first to notice that Eve is not what she seems, but her friends assume it is just petty jealousy, and it only makes them want to protect Eve. Ultimately, the loyalty of all four friends keeps them together. And ultimately, Eve is reigned in by someone who is her equal, acidic columnist Addison De Witt (a silky George Saunders).

All About Eve won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders), Best Screenplay, Best Direction, and Best Costume Design. Joseph L. Mankiewicz and his brother Herman (co-author of "Citizen Kane") were responsible for many of the finest scripts ever produced. And that is Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest appearances, as Miss Caswell.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what actions are appropriate to realize ambition. Compare it to movies like Rudy , also about the achievement of a dream. It's not the dream that differs here as much as how it's achieved. It might be fun for kids to talk about the theater and how it differs from movies. Take them to a local production, or get a book of plays for children from the library and help them produce one.

Movie Details

• In theaters : October 13, 1950
• On DVD or streaming : January 14, 2003
• Cast : Anne Baxter , Bette Davis , George Sanders
• Director : Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
• Genre : Classic
• Run time : 138 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : May 16, 2024

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Sunset Boulevard

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Oscar: Best Picture–All About Eve (1950)–Bette Davis in Definitive Performance

In 1950, two major films dealt in a poignantly satirical way with the world of showbiz: “All About Eve” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Never before had Broadway in “All About Eve” and Hollywood in “Sunset Boulevard” suffered such scathing indictments from their own members.

“All About Eve” marked a breech in America’s love affair with Broadway–and the end of Broadway’s golden era. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s unveiled a new image of a corrupt place where actresses slept their way to the top. In the Anne Baxter and George Sanders characters, ruthless people clawing their way upwards, Broadway’s dark side was revealed. Marilyn Monroe, in an early role, calls producers “unhappy rabbits,” a dismissal that’s indicative of the film’s attitude toward the theater.

“All About Eve” radically redefined the orthodox view of a sacrosanct theater. Gary Merrill, Bette Davis’ lover in the film–and in real life–says: “Want to know what the theater is A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man-band–all theater. You don’t understand them all–why should you It may not be your theater, but it’s theater for somebody, somewhere.”

“All About Eve” opened in New York at the Roxy on October 13, 1950. Twenty years later, it became the Broadway musical “Applause,” with Lauren Bacall in the Davis part. The title of the stage version came from Anne Baxter’s lines:

“Why, if there’s nothing else–there’s applause. I’ve listened, backstage, to people applaud. It’s like–like waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up.”

Moderately successful at the box office, the picture grossed less than $3 million, despite sweeping the Oscars that year and featuring Davis’ greatest performance. The film has remained popular, however, due to Mankiewicz’s sharp writing. Fueled by brilliant banter, the film’s quotability (“Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night”) has resulted in a cult following. Line for line, “All About Eve” has what one critic called “the highest quotient of wit of any film made before or since.”

Mankiewicz’ lines are too witty to reflect a “realistic” speech, but there’s no denying their entertainment value. “Eve would ask Abbott to give her Costello.” “Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke!” “Miss Caswell [Marilyn Monroe] is an actress, a graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Arts.” “Oh, did I say killer I meant champion. I get my boxing terms mixed.” “What a story! Everything but the blood-hounds snappin’ at her rear end!” However, the most memorable lines are in Margo Channing’s speech, which blatantly states how career women were seen in the 1950s–a professional woman becomes a woman only after she’s done with her career!

Funny business a woman’s career. The things you drop on you way up the ladder–so you can move faster–you forget you’ll need them again when you go back to being a woman. That’s one career that 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 what other careers we’ve had or wanted. In “All About Eve” there are two images of career women: Davis and Baxter. Davis is the good career woman in traditional Hollywood thinking, she acknowledges the importance of men by eventually getting married and giving up her passionate work. “I’ve finally got a life to live,” she later says, “I have things to do with my nights.”

Anne Baxter’s Eve Harrington is the bad career woman, willing to do everything and anything to make it. The film’s sexual politics extend into innuendoes, some ahead of their time. Eve’s lesbianism, which seems clear today, was missed at the time. Baxter’s mannishly cropped hairstyle is a lesbian stereotype, and she’s overly friendly with a pajama-clad roommate. Eve suggests that Phoebe, her younger counterpart, stay the night rather than make the long subway trip home.

“All About Eve” was one of the first films to deal with the burgeoning generation gap, which would be fully stated in the l960s. But it was in the l950s that communication breakdown and hatred between generations became apparent. Davis and Baxter represent the growing irreconcilability of different generations that profess opposing values.

The record for Oscar nominations, 14, was held by “All About Eve” until James Cameron’s “Titanic,” which also received 14. The film won 6 Oscars, including Best Picture. Mankiewicz won 2 Oscars, as writer (original screenplay) and director, and Sanders won Supporting Oscar as the acerbic drama critic. Its two leading ladies, Davis and Baxter, didn’t win; they probably canceled each other out. Davis did win the N.Y. Film Critics Award.

Yet the film itself slyly made fun of the awards system. The acerbic critic (Sanders) takes a jab at the Academy (Oscar) Awards: The Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement is perhaps unknown to you. It has been spared the sensational and commercial publicity that attends such questionable `honors’ as the Nobel Prize–and those awards presented annually by that film society. In another scene, Davis tells Baxter, “Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn’t worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be!”

Tallulah Bankhead on Rival Davis

“All About Eve” irritated legendary actress Tallulah Bankhead, who insisted that Davis was “taking revenge” by imitating her hairdo and voice. Tallulah and Davis were having a bitter feud, but this movie made the feud explode. Davis and Mankiewicz declared the film was modeled on the relationship between actresses Elisabeth Bergner and Irene Worth, but Tallulah told Fox’s mogul, Darryl F. Zanuck: “That bitch stole my best stage roles for films (“The Little Foxes”), and now she is holding me up to public ridicule with her imitations of me!”

Bette Davis as Margo Channing

Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington

George Sanders as Addison DeWitt

Celeste Holm as Karen Richards

Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson

Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards

Thelma Ritter as Birdie

Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian

Marilyn Monroe as Miss Casswell

Barbara Bates as Phoebe

PROFESSOR / CRITIC / AUTHOR

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All About Eve Reviews

The barbed dialogue is witty and wonderful, delivered with tart insolence by Bette Davis as ... an aging Broadway lioness who watches ruthless cub Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) pull out her claws as she purrs and insinuates herself into stardom.

Full Review | Aug 19, 2023

A penetrating anecdote on the viciousness of narcissism, cynicism, deceit, and celebrity, All About Eve is one of the most revolutionary and sharp-edged screenplays ever written.

Full Review | Jun 8, 2023

All About Eve proved to Hollywood that Bette Davis wasn't ready to quit and it remains one of the greatest films ever made.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 26, 2023

The writing and directing by Joseph L. Mankiewicz are superb, and the acting is Academy-Award all the way.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2022

It is a very long piece, and it often seems long, though never when Bette Davis is on the screen; Miss Davis as the Broadway star, insolent, stormy, waspish and terrified of growing old, is magnificent.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2022

Joseph L. Mankiewicz's bad taste, exhibited with verve, is more fun than careful, mousy, dehydrated good taste. His nonsense about "theatre" is saved by one performance that is the real thing: Bette Davis is at her most instinctive and assured.

Full Review | Jul 28, 2022

You'll want to see All Abut Eve a couple of times.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2022

Bette Davis has never done anything better.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2022

The script is well capable of carrying out the film's intentions -- it is, indeed, an admirable piece of work and not lacking in wit.

It has been a long time since the screen has offered us anything as adult, as full of insight, or (in the favorable sense of the word) as sophisticated as All About Eve.

Full Review | Feb 10, 2022

Allows its stars to chew up the scenery whilst taking swipes at the stereotypes and clichés of Broadway theatre.

Full Review | Aug 17, 2021

All About Eve does a very difficult thing consummately. It deals with the egotistical, over-articulate, emotionally undisciplined people of the theatre and paints them as credible human beings rather than eccentric caricatures.

Full Review | Jul 15, 2021

It is smart and shiny and it is sparked by a set of high-voltage performances that wring just about every ounce of wit out of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's crackling script

Full Review | Jul 13, 2021

So breath-takingly sharp and tense a story of the theater could hardly be so vital without some fragments of truth In its background.

Full Review | Apr 6, 2021

As the young hopeful whose pretended naivete and ingratiating manners mask a hard, ruthless determination, Anne Baxter is at her dramatic best.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/3 | Apr 6, 2021

All About Eve is undoubtedly the best picture of the year, even better than Sunset Boulevard.

This is a sophisticated picture, something 'way, 'way off the beaten Hollywood track.

The great charm of All About Eve, apart from its wit and genuine understanding of human nature, is the story's gradual unfolding.

If you miss [All About Eve] you'll miss the treat of your life. You'll miss Bette Davis in the grandest performance she ever gave as the aging actress who is case-hardened by success.

A scintillating, stimulating, extraordinary achievement.

Full Review | Apr 2, 2021

All About Eve (1950)

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West End Review: Gillian Anderson and Lily James in ‘All About Eve’

GIllian Anderson and Lily James star in auteur Ivo van Hove's adaptation of the classic film.

By Matt Trueman

Matt Trueman

• London Theater Review: ‘A Very Expensive Poison’ 5 years ago
• West End Review: ‘The Night of the Iguana’ With Clive Owen 5 years ago
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To adapt a crass old adage: it’s “ All About Eve ,” not “All About Steve.” Stripping Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s sharp-witted screenplay about a waning theater star of its period trappings, Ivo van Hove ’s stage adaptation fine-tunes its feminism for our own sexist age — image-obsessed, anti-aging, the time of Time’s Up. Rather than blaming Lily James ’ ambitious Eve for overthrowing Gillian Anderson ’s Margo Channing, this “live cinema” staging reserves its real ire for the men around them both: those that script, shape and critique the way women appear. “Funny business, a woman’s career,” Margo mused in 1950; 70 years on, it’s funnier still.

The silvery walls of designer Jan Versweyveld’s stage are studded with portraits of Anderson’s Margo: lips pouted, hair tussled, hand grazing a cheek. They’re the sort of shots that sell make-up or clothes, and sit in glossy magazines on glossier coffee tables. This is the visual lexicon of femininity and stardom today, the currency of fame that gives female celebrities their value. Over the course of “All About Eve,” almost without anyone initially noticing, Anderson’s photos are swapped for almost identical shots of James’ Eve. This “All About Eve” is all about image.

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Mankiewicz’s original film starts as showbiz satire and mutates into horror. Bit by bit, the butter-wouldn’t-melt Eve homes in on her heroine, the great Broadway star, and primes herself for a well-timed pounce. She is a perfect parasite: a fawning young fan who, gradually, gears up to oust her host. Eve’s not just an understudy who usurps the star, but an imposter who appropriates her idol’s entire identity. She studies Margo’s mannerisms, what makes her tick, then steps into her shoes, her spotlight, even her skin. By the time you clock on, it’s already too late. The young woman has consumed her elder entirely.

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Here, from the moment James’ eager Eve scoops up Margo’s costume and tries it on for size, sliding an arm into each sleeve, her intentions are obvious. When she bows, dreamily, into thin air, Anderson’s stood right behind her, looking on like a ghost. It’s creepy, but if it pre-empts the plot, giving the game away from the start, van Hove has another target in mind: not the act of replacement, but the image being refreshed — a version of womanhood shaped by the male gaze.

Because both Margo and Eve are surrounded by men: Stanley Townsend’s urbane and authoritative critic Addison DeWitt, who guides the onstage camera through this backstage world and so frames what we see; Rhashan Stone’s nervy dramatist Lloyd Richards, who writes these women their roles; Julian Ovenden’s charmed director, who pulls them into shape; Ian Drysdale’s obnoxious producer, who puts up the cash. Between them, these men shape the way women are seen: who gets the spotlight, in what roles and how. Actresses themselves are reduced to mere pawns. As the playwright snaps, “It’s about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto.”

Van Hove, cleverly, uses the camera to split the public and the private, on from off. As cameras snake through the action, one shows Margo’s party guests cavorting, while another finds the hostess drinking alone, vomiting up her champagne then fixing her face, wiping her chin and rejoining the fray. Another spies Eve, flustered, fending off an intrusive interview behind the bedroom door, before popping outside wearing nothing but a towel and a smile. Throughout we’re privy to public faces and private moments, and van Hove suggests that women are constantly expected to perform.

His central motifs are makeup and mirrors. Again and again, we see Margo and Eve fixing their faces and staring back at their reflections, sometimes holding their features aghast. A mini-camera catches them in close up and, with a little technical wizardry, their faces age before their very eyes: Anderson’s cracks into wrinkles, her hair thins; James’ mutates to meet Anderson’s outline. Those portraits exert a pressure of their own, too perfect to be true. “It got so I couldn’t tell the real from the unreal,” Eve frets. “Except that the unreal seemed more real to me.”

If it’s a typically incisive understanding of a story’s substance, too often “All About Eve” feels like auto van Hove — a selection of the Flemish director’s old familiar tricks. It’s meaningful, but mechanical; cleverly calculated, artfully calibrated but ultimately uninspired. That the production never finds a way to subvert or distort its own gaze — casting two beautiful screen stars without entirely disrupting their image (or its own marketing campaign) — only adds to the irony of having a male director at the helm and a female lead who used opening night to tweet a promotional code for her own clothing line. It all adds to the impression of superficiality.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about your heart,” says Margo, icily, right at the end. “You can always put that award where your heart used to be.” Well, quite.

Noel Coward Theatre, London; 872 seats; £95 ($122) top. Opened, reviewed Feb. 12, 2019. Running time: 2 HOURS

• Production: A Sonia Friedman Productions production of a screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, adapted by Ivo van Hove.
• Crew: Directed by Ivo van Hove. Set and lighting design, Jan Versweyveld; costume design, An D’Huys; composer, PJ Harvey; sound design, Tom Gibbons.
• Cast: Gillian Anderson, Merric Boyd, Monica Dolan, Ian Drysdale,  Rejiro Emasiobi, Tsion Habte, Charles Hagerty, Lily James, Jessie Mei Li, Chanelle Modi, Stuart Nunn, Julian Ovenden, Phillipa Peak, Sheila Reid, Grace Stone, Rhashan Stone, Stanley Townsend, Philip Voyzey, Michael Warburton.

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Joseph L. Mankiewicz

All About Eve

In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s devastatingly witty Hollywood classic, backstage is where the real drama plays out. One night, Margo Channing (Bette Davis) entertains a surprise dressing-room visitor: her most adoring fan, the shy, wide-eyed Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). But as Eve becomes a fixture in Margo’s life, the Broadway legend soon realizes that her supposed admirer intends to use her and everyone in her circle, including George Sanders’s acid-tongued critic, as stepping-stones to stardom. Featuring stiletto-sharp dialogue and direction by Mankiewicz, and an unforgettable Davis in the role that revived her career and came to define it, the multiple-Oscar-winning All About Eve is the most deliciously entertaining film ever made about the ruthlessness of show business.

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TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Two audio commentaries from 2010, one featuring actor Celeste Holm, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s son Christopher Mankiewicz, and author Kenneth L. Geist; the other featuring author Sam Staggs
• All About Mankiewicz, a feature-length documentary from 1983 about the director
• Episodes of The Dick Cavett Show from 1969 and 1980 featuring actors Bette Davis and Gary Merrill
• New interview with costume historian Larry McQueen
• Hollywood Backstories: “All About Eve,” a 2001 documentary featuring interviews with Davis and others about the making of the film
• Documentaries from 2010 about Mankiewicz’s life and career; “The Wisdom of Eve,” the 1946 short story on which the film is based, and its real-world inspiration; and a real-life Sarah Siddons Society based on the film’s fictional organization
• Radio adaptation of the film from 1951
• Promotion for the film featuring Davis
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Plus: An essay by critic Terrence Rafferty and “The Wisdom of Eve”

New cover by Greg Ruth

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Bonanza for Bette

“All About Eve” is an account of how a young actress progresses from obscurity to fame. In this it is similar to a good many films that have gone before it, but Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed the picture, has been so ingenious in his treatment of the subject that he has come up with a thoroughly entertaining movie. In place of the usual heroine of this kind of thing—a bright-eyed girl who doesn’t doff her Mary Jane pumps until she’s called upon to take over from somebody like Helen Hayes on Broadway—Mr. Mankiewicz has substituted an alarming little schemer, willing to indulge in anything from adultery to blackmail to realize her theatrical ambitions, and in following her about he discovers an amusing bunch of people, all of them witty, if not overly wise. As the Eve of this enterprise, Anne Baxter is always interesting to watch, even when her claws are showing a trifle too obviously. Among those she scratches up most furiously are a playwright’s wife of infinite patience, and an actress so unstable that her own true love describes her as more than slightly paranoiac. As the wife, Celeste Holm moves ingratiatingly through a role that isn’t very taxing; as the actress, Bette Davis finally has a part that permits her to demonstrate, in her high-voltage style, that when her talents are applied to something worth while she can really bring a great deal of authority to bear. Purportedly a woman of forty in love with a younger man, Miss Davis, often in unflattering makeup, jumps from comedy to pathos to hysteria with utter confidence, and she winds up by transforming a most difficult character into a lady who, however shrilly emotional, commands the sympathy of one and all.

With Miss Davis and Miss Baxter running in tandem through much of “All About Eve,” the gentlemen in the film have as hard a time making themselves conspicuous as male commuters at a white sale. Of them, I guess George Sanders comes nearest to encroaching upon the ladies. He’s supposed to be a venomous drama critic, but I doubt whether any of the boys in the play-reviewing line could ever behave as horridly as he does. For those of you who remember Mr. Mankiewicz’s “A Letter to Three Wives,” I’m happy to report that Thelma Ritter, who was so funny in that one, is on hand in “All About Eve.” Just as funny, too.

In “The Breaking Point,” we have a solid melodrama based on Ernest Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not.” The locale of the story has been shifted from Florida to California, and a lady undreamed of by Mr. H. has been added to the dramatis personae, but otherwise Ranald MacDougall, who is responsible for the current screenplay, hasn’t fiddled around too much with the spirit of the original. This time, Hemingway’s boatman does his adventuring down Mexico way, having no luck trying to smuggle a parcel of Chinese into the U.S., and falling foul of a group of crooks heading away from a race-track stickup. He also has an interlude with the lady who got into the piece through the courtesy of Mr. MacDougall, but it doesn’t jar the continuity at all. As the boatman, John Garfield is excellent, and he gets fine support from the others in the cast, among them Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernández, and Wallace Ford. Michael Curtiz is to be commended for his direction.

“Two Flags West” tells what happens when a band of Southern prisoners volunteer to help the Union Army fight the Indians, back in the days of the Civil War. As you might expect, the Yankees and Rebels don’t hit it off too well, and they both have a hell of a lot of trouble with the Indians. Hardly on the subtle side, the picture does contain as much action as the traffic will bear. Joseph Cotten, Jeff Chandler, and Cornel Wilde are among the chaps in blue and gray, and Linda Darnell is around to stir them up. ♦

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> All About Eve (1950) Film Review

All about eve.

Reviewed by: Anton Bitel

It is 1950, and Joseph L Mankiewicz's All About Eve has received 14 Academy Award nominations - more than any other film made before or indeed since, until James Cameron's Titanic (1997) came along to sweep the board. Its aging lead Bette Davis, who was effectively attempting to make her comeback with the film after a recent raft of flops, was of course up for Best Actress - but so too was her much younger co-star Anne Baxter, who had let it be known to the Academy that she would not accept a nomination merely as Best Supporting Actress. The result was a split vote, with the award in the end going to Judy Holliday in the more forgettable Born Yesterday.

It is a scenario that seems to have modeled itself on the film itself. All About Eve opens near its chronological end, with the announcement that Baxter's character Eve Harrington has beaten her older mentor-turned-rival Margo Channing (Davis) to a dramatic award for Best Performance (which was the film's original title).

Flash back to Eve's first backstage encounter with her idol Margo, and there is a spark of asymmetrical recognition between the breathless, starstruck not-quite-ingénue and the worldweary, acid-mouthed grande dame of the theatre. In Eve, Margo sees the youth of her past, while in Margo, Eve sees the realisation of all her ambitions for the future - and from here on the film traces the rise of one and the fall of the other, as Eve insinuates herself into Margo's world in a viciously calculated effort to displace her, with Margo all too painfully aware of what is going on. Her only revenge can be the irrevocable laws of gravity which will eventually - inevitably - bring Eve down too, and we are left to suspect that the talented starlet, in fact more naïve than she pretends to be, will land that much harder than her one-time patroness.

At one point near the end of Mankiewicz's film, the caddishly cynical theatre critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) refers to Eve as a "killer" - and although no actual blood is shed (the lethal blows here are all verbal), it is possible to discern in Eve's malicious ascendancy the elements (her sociopathic manipulation and marriage-wrecking seduction of those around her) that would later characterise the whole 'bunny-boiler' thriller subgenre, from Play Misty For Me through Fatal Attraction , Poison Ivy, Single White Female, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, The Temp and The Page Turner .

So, unsurprisingly, All About Eve offers a fairly bleak portrait of feminine power and its dependence on not just real talent, but also on mask-wearing, youthful attractiveness, and a ruthlessness towards other women. Eve may be, as Margo puts it, "Little Miss Evil", but so, we imagine, was Margo herself once, and in the film's final, memorable image, an even younger woman (Barbara Bates) poses with Eve's dress and award before a wall of mirrors, making it clear that Eve too will one day become a victim of the very same drives that propelled her to the top. As the biblical title suggests, this is all about the Fall of Woman, with feminine jealousy, insecurity and self-loathing at its core - although the film's details are too nuanced for it to be, at least in any straightforward way, misogynistic.

When a film has achieved the classic status of All About Eve, it can easily withstand a bit of negative criticism. Much like Davis' rasp-voiced heroine, the film is starting to show its age - even if it has recently undergone a full makeover with a flawless frame-by-frame digital restoration. Many of today's viewers may find its length a challenge, for what is essentially a dialogue-driven melodrama - and there is no denying that the film is not just concerned with the theatrical world, but is also itself decidedly stagey, with far more tell than show to it.

If it were remade for contemporary tastes and more media-savvy times, All About Eve would be shorter, more sexually explicit, and set in the world of cinema rather than theatre. In fact, if it were remade today, it would probably be something like Yukihiko Tsutsumi's hyperkinetic bitchslap 2LDK (2003) – which of course reveals as much about our own age as about the studio system's 'Golden Age' in the 1950s.

There is so much to admire in All About Eve, even for those too young to be drenched in nostalgia for the spectacle of Bette Davis unleashing her sharp tongue. The performances are all bitterly precise and all the more generous for being so unflattering, the lines are more barbed than a scorpion's tail, and there is even a hilariously self-referential cameo by one Marilyn Monroe as a vapid starlet who is sleeping with the producer. And for the harshness of its cynicism, it has few rivals.

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the story 'The Wisdom of Eve' by Mary Orr.

Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Ritter, Walter Hampton

Runtime: 138 minutes

Country: US

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All About Eve Review

30 Nov 2007

138 minutes

All About Eve

All four female stars in this 1950 adaptation of Mary Orr’s short story were cited for Academy Awards, but it was writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz who landed a brace of Oscars for the showbiz bitchfest, with a flashback format resembling the one his brother Herman had devised for Citizen Kane nine years earlier.

The stinging bon mots occasionally sound handcrafted rather than raspingly spontaneous, but aspiring actress Anne Baxter’s rise to the top over the corpse of her supposed idol, Bette Davis, remains rousing and endlessly amusing. And the merciless demythologising of the tawdry trappings of fame is acutely relevant in these days of transient celebrity.

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All About Eve Reviews

• 98   Metascore
• 2 hr 18 mins
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An aspiring actress feigns humility and naiveté to connive her way under the wing of a veteran Broadway star. She manipulates those in the star's circle in hopes of cheating her way to the top. Based on the short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr.

ALL ABOUT EVE is the consummate backstage story, a film that holds a magnifying glass up to theatrical environs and exposes all the egos, tempers, conspiracies and backstage back-biting that make up the world of make-believe on Broadway. The screenplay, written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also directed, may be the most biting example of hard-boiled wit ever to come out of Hollywood, and it is stylishly performed at a breakneck pace by a uniformly expert cast. The story, based on Mary Orr's "The Wisdom of Eve," concerns an aging star who befriends a seemingly innocent fan, who wants to take over and inhabit the star's life. Bette Davis won the part of vain, temperamental Margo Channing by default when Claudette Colbert broke her back, and single-handedly revived her career after having been dumped by Warner Bros. Though Mankiewicz and Davis always claimed the character was based on Austrian actress Elisabeth Bergner, Davis enacted her role as a mirror twin of then-fabled Broadway rival Tallulah Bankhead, thus fanning the flames of an already existing feud. EVE was the peak of Anne Baxter's star years and she almost matches Davis in her silky, dangerous portrayal of Eve. These two are supported by a who's who of matchless portraits, including Gary Merrill (whom Davis would fall in love with during filming and later marry), George Sanders (as a poisonous critic), the biting Thelma Ritter, Celeste Holm, and a young Marilyn Monroe as a cynical, dreamy starlet. EVE won six Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Sanders), Costume Design (Edith Head), and Sound Recording. It also was nominated for Cinematography, Art Direction, Score, Editing, and Supporting Actress (Holm and Ritter). Bette Davis was doomed to lose for Best Actress, canceled out by Baxter's shared nomination, and by rival old pro Gloria Swanson for SUNSET BOULEVARD (all lost to rookie Judy Holliday for BORN YESTERDAY). The musical Applause, a Broadway success with Lauren Bacall, and later Anne Baxter, was based on EVE.

All About Eve (1950)

Directed by joseph l. mankiewicz.

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Description by Wikipedia

All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It is based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr, although Orr does not receive a screen credit.

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Reel Classics - Where Black Meets White

All about eve: criterion collection (1950) - blu-ray review.

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[tab title="Movie Review"]

"What a story!  Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end."

Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz , and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, All About Eve continues to shine bright thanks to the dazzling performance of Bette Davis as Margo Channing as she takes Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington under her wing and invites her into the world of theater and stardom . . . only to find herself at odds with her guest and, eventually, her own mortality as youth ALWAYS trumps talent again and again and again and . . . 

Eve is not at all the innocent lamb that she claims to be.  She’s more than her woe is me tale and she wants what Channing has: ABSOLUTE GREATNESS .  The seduction game is afoot early as theater critic Addison DeWitt ( George Sanders ) begins the tale with a glimpse at the future as Eve accepts an award for her performance, thanking those she stepped on along the way, including Channing.

Before all that happens, Channing - overcome by her tale and her adoration - invites Eve into her home, ultimately offering her  a job with her as her assistant, tossing her longtime friend, Birdie ( Thelma Ritter ), to the side.  Birdie never buys what Eve sells, but none of that matter when she finds herself displaced. 

Co-starring Celeste Holm , and featuring Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe , and Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles, All About Eve is a tale that keeps on being told as there is always someone, somewhere who wants what someone else has and is willing, no matter how insignificant that fame might be, to do whatever it takes to steal it from beneath them.

Eve, who is later seen wearing the costume that Channing wore on stage, is plotting her way toward stardom.  She plays the innocent all the way to the top and her truth is only revealed in dry side smiles that her directness almost casts doubts on as she eventually moves into Channing’s guest house and takes over the day-to-day schedule of Channing, fawning over her whenever and wherever she can.

But it is all practice for her own chance to fly on the stage and be more successful than Channing at her own game.

From the very start of the picture to its closing frame as the circle of starlets completes itself, we are in the presence of greatness as everything about All About Eve works to create a film that never gets old, never wears thin, and NEVER disappoints as an idol gets totally and completely cannibalized right in front of our very eyes.  

All About Eve is now on blu-ray thanks to the Criterion Collection ’s 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack.  The story might be familiar, but this impressive film truly does not disappoint.

[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Criterion Available on Blu-ray - November 26, 2019 Screen Formats: 1.37:1 Subtitles : English SDH Audio: English: LPCM Mono Discs: Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

In Joseph L. Mankiewicz ’s devastatingly witty Hollywood classic, backstage is where the real drama plays out. One night, Margo Channing ( Bette Davis ) entertains a surprise dressing-room visitor: her most adoring fan, the shy, wide-eyed Eve Harrington ( Anne Baxter ). But as Eve becomes a fixture in Margo’s life, the Broadway legend soon realizes that her supposed admirer intends to use her and everyone in her circle, including George Sanders ’s acid-tongued critic, as stepping-stones to stardom. Featuring stiletto-sharp dialogue and direction by Mankiewicz , and an unforgettable Davis in the role that revived her career and came to define it, the multiple-Oscar-winning All About Eve is the most deliciously entertaining film ever made about the ruthlessness of show business.

With an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, Criterion ’s 4K handling of this masterpiece is impressive as new details in costumes are revealed.  There is a new depth to the picture, too.  The shadows are deeper and stronger as an acetate 35mm duplicate negative was used as a primary source for scanning in 4K to create the highest picture quality possible.  There are so many new details to decipher thanks to this 1080p transfer.  And, as original documents from the film’s director were followed during the restoration, the new transfer more accurately reflects what he was intending the picture to look and feel like.  And it all works to create an experience that is unlike any other in Hollywood’s history.

Dialogue-focused and direct, the Dolby TrueHD Mono soundtrack attached here is plenty solid as it reveals All About Eve .

Supplements:

Commentary :

• There are two audio commentaries from 2010, one featuring actor Celeste Holm , director Joseph L. Mankiewicz ’s son Christopher Mankiewicz , and author Kenneth L. Geist ; the other featuring author Sam Staggs .

Special Features:

With a new cover designed by Greg Ruth and an essay by critic Terrence Rafferty and “The Wisdom of Eve”, this release is a stunning 4K handling of an unforgettable classic film.  The featurettes included with the blu-ray include a feature-length documentary, episodes of The Dick Cavett Show , a NEW interview with costume historian Larry McQueen , and three other documentaries about the film and its legacy.

• All About Mankiewicz, a feature-length documentary from 1983 about the director
• Episodes of The Dick Cavett Show from 1969 and 1980 featuring actors Bette Davis and Gary Merrill
• New interview with costume historian Larry McQueen
• Hollywood Backstories: “All About Eve,” a 2001 documentary featuring interviews with Davis and others about the making of the film
• Documentaries from 2010 about Mankiewicz’s life and career; “The Wisdom of Eve,” the 1946 short story on which the film is based, and its real-world inspiration; and a real-life Sarah Siddons Society based on the film’s fictional organization
• Radio adaptation of the film from 1951
• Promotion for the film featuring Davis

Blu-ray Rating:

[tab title="Film Details"]

MPAA Rating: Unrated. Runtime: 138 mins Director : Joseph L. Mankiewicz Writer: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders Genre : Drama Tagline: It's all about women---and their men! Memorable Movie Quote: "You looking for an answer or an argument?" Theatrical Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Official Site: Release Date: October 27, 1950 DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: November 26, 2019. Synopsis : In Joseph L. Mankiewicz's devastatingly witty Hollywood classic, backstage is where the real drama plays out. One night, Margo Channing (Bette Davis) entertains a surprise dressing-room visitor: her most adoring fan, the shy, wide-eyed Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). But as Eve becomes a fixture in Margo's life, the Broadway legend soon realizes that her supposed admirer intends to use her and everyone in her circle, including George Sanders's acid-tongued critic, as stepping-stones to stardom. Featuring stiletto-sharp dialogue and direction by Mankiewicz, and an unforgettable Davis in the role that revived her career and came to define it, the multiple-Oscar-winning All About Eve is the most deliciously entertaining film ever made about the ruthlessness of show business.

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Culture | Theatre

All About Eve review round-up: What the critics said about Gillian Anderson play

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All About Eve has been called a perfect film. Released in 1950, Bette Davis played an ageing stage star under siege from a manipulative aspiring actress.

With Gillian Anderson and Lily James in these roles, the play at the Noel Coward Theatre has been more than hotly anticipated.

Belgian director Ivo Van Hove has a reputation for dividing audiences and critics. Now that the reviews are in, All About Eve seems to be no different, with some praising his technical wizardry and others saying it had little impact.

The Standard’s Henry Hitchings gave the play three stars , saying: “While the original script’s best lines are preserved, this reinterpretation misses a lot of its humour, charm and bite…But Anderson’s smallest gestures, such as a brief and pensive wrinkling of the brow, are eloquent.”

Find out what the rest have said here:

The Guardian, Michael Billington ★★★

“For all its skill, I found myself admiring its cleverness more than relishing its drama...This is not to deny that the actors do a good job. Even if it is hard to accept Anderson as a fading beauty, she invests Margo with a slow drawl and a pensive awareness of her own dispensability.” Read the review here .

The Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish ★★★

“The two co-stars tread with reasonable adroitness in the hallowed footsteps of their predecessors. Anderson, svelte and glowering, exudes first boredom then fear, communicates wariness well with just a poisonous glance. But we don’t get the kind of close-ups that maximised Davis’s magnificent drowsy disdain.” Read the review here .

The Times, Dominic Maxwell ★★

“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a boring night...Van Hove clings too close to Joseph Mankiewicz’s film; he fiddles with it rather than reinvents it. His best work (A View from the Bridge, Roman Tragedies) is uncomfortably intimate and intense. Here, it feels like eavesdropping on actors recreating a film, not on real people. It’s hard to care for anyone.” Read the review here .

Time Out, Andrzej Łukowski ★★★★

"All About Eve works terrifically, in part because the cast and script are excellent, in part because Van Hove’s usual box of live video tricks is so apt for a story that always felt half of film, half of theatre.” Read the review here .

Daily Mail, Quentin Letts ★★★★

“Gimmickry can be fascinating, as when Margo’s face is rapidly aged in a video time-lapse. But when done to excess, van Hoveian cleverness reduces the humanity in the theatrical experience. This is a memorable production. It is done with tremendous panache and it confirms Miss James as a top-notch stage performer, and Miss Anderson as box-office gold. But they should have called it All About Ivo.” Read the review here .

The Stage, Natasha Tripney ★★★

“The casting of Anderson as Margo is one of the production’s greatest strengths. She is simultaneously brittle and radiant, poised yet fragile, while [Monica] Dolan, as a woman who inadvertently sabotages both her friend’s career and her own marriage, provides another reminder of what a great actor she is.” Read the review here .

WhatsOnStage, Sarah Crompton ★★★★

“It's as if someone has added an extra dose of angostura bitters to a champagne cocktail; it still fizzes on the way down, but it leaves an unpleasant aftertaste. The result is a production that is easier to admire than to adore, but one which offers a wonderful central role to Gillian Anderson which she seizes with both hands and makes it her own.” Read the review here .

Opening night of All About Eve - in pictures

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Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

All About Eve (1950)

Eve of destruction.

"Bill's thirty-two. He looks thirty-two. He looked it five years ago, he'll look it twenty years from now. I hate men." "Don't cry. Just score it as an incomplete forward pass." "To those of you who do not read, attend the theater, listen to unsponsored radio programs or know anything of the world in which you live, it is perhaps necessary to introduce myself." "The cynicism you refer to, I acquired the day I discovered I was different from little boys!" "Does Miss Channing know she ordered domestic gin by mistake?" "The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests. They're domestic too, and they don't care what they drink, as long as it burns." "Everybody has a heart. Except some people."

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All About Eve

• Blu-ray edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
• November 25 2019

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In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s devastatingly witty Hollywood classic, backstage is where the real drama plays out. One night, Margo Channing (Bette Davis) entertains a surprise dressing-room visitor: her most adoring fan, the shy, wide-eyed Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). But as Eve becomes a fixture in Margo’s life, the Broadway legend soon realizes that her supposed admirer intends to use her and everyone in her circle, including George Sanders’s acid-tongued critic, as stepping-stones to stardom. Featuring stiletto-sharp dialogue and direction by Mankiewicz, and an unforgettable Davis in the role that revived her career and came to define it, the multiple-Oscar-winning All About Eve is the most deliciously entertaining film ever made about the ruthlessness of show business.

Picture 8/10

Extras 8/10

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THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Bette Davis and Anne Baxter Star in 'All About Eve,' New Feature at Roxy Theatre

By Bosley Crowther

• Oct. 14, 1950

The good old legitimate theatre, the temple of Thespis and Art, which has dished out a lot of high derision of Hollywood in its time, had better be able to take it as well as dish it out, because the worm has finally turned with a venom and Hollywood is dishing it back. In "All About Eve," a withering satire—witty, mature and worldly-wise — which Twentieth Century-Fox and Joseph Mankiewicz delivered to the Roxy yesterday, the movies are letting Broadway have it with claws out and no holds barred. If Thespis doesn't want to take a beating, he'd better yell for George Kaufman and Moss Hart.As a matter of fact, Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Hart might even find themselves outclassed by the dazzling and devastating mockery that is brilliantly packed into this film. For obviously Mr. Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed it, had been sharpening his wits and his talents a long, long time for just this go. Obviously, he had been observing the theatre and its charming folks for years with something less than an idolater's rosy illusions and zeal. And now, with the excellent assistance of Bette Davis and a truly sterling cast, he is wading into the theatre's middle with all claws slashing and settling a lot of scores.If anything, Mr. Mankiewicz has been even too full of fight—-too full of cutlass-edged derision of Broadway's theatrical tribe. Apparently his dormant dander and his creative zest were so aroused that he let himself go on this picture and didn't know when to stop. For two hours and eighteen minutes have been taken by him to achieve the ripping apart of an illusion which might have been comfortably done in an hour and a half.It is not that his characters aren't full blown, that his incidents aren't brilliantly conceived and that his dialogue, pithy and pungent, is not as clever as any you will hear. In picturing the inside story of an ambitious actress' rise from glamour-struck girl in a theatre alley to flinty-eyed winner of the Siddons Prize, Mr. Mankiewicz has gathered up a saga of theatrical ambition and conceit, pride and deception and hypocrisy, that just about drains the subject dry.Indeed, he has put so many characters — so many vivid Broadway types—through the flattening and decimating wringer of his unmerciful wit that the punishment which he gives them becomes painful when so lengthily drawn. And that's the one trouble with this picture. It beats the horse after it is dead.But that said, the rest is boundless tribute to Mr. Mankiewicz and his cast for ranging a gallery of people that dazzle, horrify and fascinate. Although the title character—the self-seeking, ruthless Eve, who would make a black-widow spider look like a lady bug—is the motivating figure in the story and is played by Anne Baxter with icy calm, the focal figure and most intriguing character is the actress whom Bette Davis plays. This lady, an aging, acid creature with a cankerous ego and a stinging tongue, is the end-all of Broadway disenchantment, and Miss Davis plays her to a fare-thee-well. Indeed, the superb illumination of the spirit and pathos of this dame which is a brilliant screen actress gives her merits an Academy award.Of the men, George Sanders is walking wormwood, neatly wrapped in a mahogany veneer, as a vicious and powerful drama critic who has a licentious list towards pretty girls; Gary Merrill is warm and reassuring as a director with good sense and a heart, and Hugh Marlowe is brittle and boyish as a playwright with more glibness than brains. Celeste Holm is appealingly normal and naive as the latter's wife and Thelma Ritter is screamingly funny as a wised-up maid until she is summarily lopped off.A fine Darryl Zanuck production, excellent music and an air of ultra-class complete this superior satire. The legitimate theatre had better look to its laurels.On the stage at the Roxy are Martha Stewart and the Blackburn Twins and Joan Hyldoft, Phil Romayne and Terry Brent in an ice revue.

ALL ABOUT EVE, screen play by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, adapted from a short story and radio play by Mary Orr; directed by Mr. Mankiewicz; produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Roxy.Margo . . . . . Bette DavisEve . . . . . Anne BaxterAddison De Witt . . . . . George SandersKaren . . . . . Celeste HolmLloyd Richards . . . . . Hugh MarloweBirdie . . . . . Thelma RitterMiss Casswell . . . . . Marilyn MonroeMax Fabian . . . . . Gregory RatoffPhoebe . . . . . Barbara BatesAged Actor . . . . . Walter HampdenGirl . . . . . Randy StuartLeading Man . . . . . Craig HillDoorman . . . . . Leland HarrisAutograph Seeker . . . . . Barbara WhiteStage Manager . . . . . Eddie FisherPianist . . . . . Claude Stroud

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