Classic 50s Movie: “All About Eve”
May is Classic 50s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Ricardo Bravo.
Movie Title: All About Eve
Year: 1950
Writers: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Oscar winner) (written for the screen by) based on “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr.
Lead Actors: Bette Davis (Nominated for an Oscar), Anne Baxter (Nominated for an Oscar), George Sanders (Oscar winner), Celeste Holm (Nominated for an Oscar), Thelma Ritter (Nominated for an Oscar)
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Oscar winner)
IMDb Plot Summary: An ingenue insinuates herself in to the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theatre friends.
Why I Think This Is A Classic 50s Movie: 14 Oscar nominations (the most for a film until Titanic), 6 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay; wins at the BAFTAS, Golden Globes, Cannes, etc. Movies don’t come bigger than this. This is not an lavish epic relying on special effects, hundreds of extras and massive budgets. Quite the opposite. This movie relies on a magnificent screenplay, superb acting, tension you can cut with a knife and some of the best delivered lines in the history of cinema: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”
The dialogue is all superbly constructed where every line has a purpose. The movie manipulates the viewer into feeling sorry for poor little Eve and detesting the spoiled Margo (and feeling sorry for everyone who is next to her). But then the tables are turned, the sheep turns out to be a wolf in disguise, manipulating everyone around her to get what she wants. It’s engaging in every turn, noir and classy.
My Favorite Moment In The Movie: The “You are not a woman” speech by Margo. Stuck in the middle of the road on her way to the theatre, this is the first time we see Margo Channing as a real person; not a lavish, grandiose, spoiled woman, but a human being, who fears and pains, who wants to love and be loved, just as everyone else. This moment basically makes a turning point in our views against Margo; we can finally empathize with her, and we start to realize that maybe all is not black and white (even though the movie is in black and white).
My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie: The comeuppance of Eve. After all off Eve’s deceit is discovered, her carefully and long planned scheme is finally close to fruition, Eve finds herself in the hands of the machiavelic Addison DeWitt. She has met her match and lost against a much more powerful foe.
Addison DeWitt: What do you take me for?
Eve Harrington: I don’t know that I’d take you for anything.
Addison DeWitt: 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?
Eve Harrington: I’m sure you mean something by that, Addison, but I don’t know what?
Addison DeWitt: Look closely, Eve. It’s time you did. I am Addison DeWitt. I am nobody’s fool, least of all yours.
Eve Harrington: I never intended you to be.
Addison DeWitt: Yes, you did, and you still do.
Eve Harrington: I still don’t know what you’re getting at, but right now I want to take my nap. It’s important…
Addison DeWitt: It’s important right now that we talk, killer to killer.
Eve Harrington: Champion to champion.
Addison DeWitt: Not with me, you’re no champion. You’re stepping way up in class.
Eve Harrington: Addison, will you please say what you have to say, plainly and distinctly, and then get out, so I can take my nap?
Addison DeWitt: Very well — plainly and distinctly — though I consider it unnecessary because you know as well as I do what I’m going to say: Lloyd may leave Karen, but he will not leave Karen for you.
Eve Harrington: What do you mean by that?
Addison DeWitt: More plainly and more distinctly: I have not come to New Haven to see the play, discuss your dreams, or pull the ivy from the walls of Yale. I have come here to tell you that you will not marry Lloyd, or anyone else for that matter, because I will not permit it.
Eve Harrington: What have you got to do with it?
Addison DeWitt: Everything, because after tonight, you will belong to me.
Eve Harrington: Belong? To you? I can’t believe my ears!
Addison DeWitt: What a dull cliché.
Eve Harrington: Belong to you — why, that sounds medieval, something out of an old melodrama!
Addison DeWitt: So does the history of the world for the past twenty years. I don’t enjoy putting it as bluntly as this. Frankly, I’d hoped that somehow you would have known, that you would have taken it for granted that you and I…
Eve Harrington: Taken it for granted that you and I…
[laughs]
Addison DeWitt: [slaps her] Now, remember, as long as you live, never to laugh at me — at anything or anyone else, but never at me.
Eve Harrington: [walks to the door and opens it] Get out!
Addison DeWitt: You’re too short for that gesture. Besides, it went out with Mrs. Fiske.
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie:
- One of Marilyn Monroe’s first parts in a movie, in which she is surrounded by great established actors, playing the role of an inexperienced actress surrounded by great established actors.
- The superb acting by Anne Baxter in the bathroom of the restaurant when she apologises to Celeste Holm’s character. In a flick of an eye she transforms from sad and remorseful to ruthless and manipulative. It is absolutely terrifying.
- The song Margo keeps asking the pianist to play during her drunken tirade in her party, is the same as the one she hears when stuck in the car days later. Her reaction to the same song under different circumstances is quite opposite.
Thanks, Ricardo! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
We already have a set of classic 60s Movies, 70s movies, 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 50s movies.
Here is an updated list of 20 fine folks who have already volunteered [those who I put in bold have already sent me their posts]:
A Place in the Sun — Zach Jansen
A Star is Born — mkm28
All About Eve — Ricardo Bravo
American in Paris — stefani1601
File on Thelma Jordon, The — David Joyner
Harvey — Felicity Flesher
High Noon — Jeff Messerman
Invasion of the Body Snatchers — Rick Dyke
Kiss Me Deadly — John Henderson
Marty — jetwillie69
Night of the Hunter — Mark Twain
On the Waterfront — Bilbo Poynter
Rear Window — Roy Gordon
Rebel Without a Cause — uncgym44
Searchers, The — mkm28
Seven Samurai, The — PaulG
Some Like It Hot — Will King
Sunset Blvd. — Rick Dyke
Tokyo Story — Jeff Messerman
Vertigo — Jason Pates
I’m looking for 31 guest posts, one for each day of May. Why not pitch in to help add to this online resource to inspire writers to learn about and — most importantly — watch great movies.
If you have a classic 50s movies on which you’d like to do a writeup, please either post in comments or email me.
Thanks in advance!
For the original post explaining the series, go here.
For all of the 50s movies featured in the series, go here.