All About Eve
I really like going into a movie knowing little about its contents. It makes the experience of watching more fun, especially older movies that have become part of the public consciousness. I managed to have that experience with All About Eve, only knowing that it had a pretty good cast and that one line, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." Well, she was right. There's a lot to like about this showbiz drama, but the best thing is its complex characters.
It still boggles my mind that you hadn't seen this movie. It's like a fourth of a Fanny and Alexander, and how many times have you watched that? I checked the Mankiewicz thread out of curiosity and couldn't find your entry, so have I got homework for you.
Who's the good person in this movie? Is it Margo? She's seeing the end of her career coming and using the power of her voice and influence to grab hold of whatever she can. I find that admirable, but I also don't know that she took the best possible path. She's clouded by a history of narcissism even to the point where her correct assumptions are seen as delusional. Is Eve our hero? She's a young fan who stumbles into an acting career. Or is she? Is it Karen we should be rooting for? She seems nice enough, but she's always looking out for her own interests. Even her act of kindness early on in introducing Eve to her icon, Margo, seems more like a dig at her actress friend. Later, she muddles and the enacts a cover-up. The men in the film are equally complicated. Sometimes loving partners, otherwise cynical assholes. So we've got a movie full of half-contemptible, half-admirable characters and my sympathies changed from moment to moment. A bumpy night indeed.
There is no good person, just like in real life! How neat is that?
I have always believed Eve planned most of it in advance. She did not stumble into a career, she fully intended to leverage getting close to Margo to jump start herself (that sentence could be misinterpreted but I will leave it unchanged). Margo is a handful, and I think she is more often wrong than right in the movie. Karen is not only self-interested, she is the meek, submissive friend who lets herself be abused by everyone, and it's hard to respect her. The only character who is not multi-faceted is Addison, and he's just the best.
But bumps can be fun, too. And heck yes this movie is pretty darn fun. With a script by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this movie moves even though it's mostly just people talking to each other. There's a high level of wit and inside jokes that mostly went over my head because I don't know the ins and outs of the theater biz in the middle of the century. The script is great, but it would be very little without the marvelous acting on display here. Bette Davis is a marvel, so are Anne Baxter and Celeste Holm. Hugh Marlowe and Gary Merrill are interesting to watch, and George Sanders is perfect as the one truly evil character (he's especially gross to watch now).
I assume that's a comment about the whole #metoo business and so forth? I disagree that Addison falls into that sort of category. He is not abusing or molesting women for his pleasure. His sole interest is the art, and he occasionally amuses himself with the way people treat each other. His and Eve's sexes are almost immaterial. Sure, there are undertones all over the place, but he doesn't try to touch her or sleep with her and never will.
What Sanders should have told Mankiewicz:
The script is indeed nigh perfect. This is perhaps the most flawless movie on my Top 10 along with Casablanca. The dialogue is scrumptious and not a second is wasted.
I'll end by saying that this was a somewhat difficult movie to watch now. Sometimes I felt myself rubbing against the movie in a way that felt unintended. Are we supposed to rejoice at Margo's decision to give up acting and become a housewife? Doesn't that feel like she's succumbing to the sexist forces in showbiz? But maybe it is a victory for her, a person who has acted all of her life finds somebody she can be real with and no longer needs to become somebody else to feel something? Why doesn't her writer friend just write roles she is suited for, like she brings up early on? Why is that never returned to? Eve gets her prize, but the movie introduces an even younger wannabe actress in the last scene to show her the tainted fruits of her ambition. What's the end game there? Are we supposed to believe that people will just move on to being Phoebe fans? Does she get upstaged later by a middle-schooler?
The ending of the movie was exaggerated but Mankiewicz needed to make his point, and this is more elegant than doing a Twenty Years Later scene.
In my eyes, Margo gives up acting because she never completely comes to terms with her age. She has accepted she cannot keep on playing twenty year olds, but she cannot bring herself to play characters her own age. Her becoming a housewife is a compromise. I don't remember anything much sexist about it all.
Here's a really great film that at points seems ahead of its time but never quite escapes the mire of 1950s sexual and showbiz politics. Had I seen this a year ago that might not have made as much of an impact on me, but last night I couldn't stop thinking about it. It's still great in part because it foregrounds the women and gives each of them compelling, complex characteristics that make them feel both real and deeply flawed in different ways. That's one of the things I love to see in movies, so I loved seeing it here, too.
A-
There's a typo there. You wanted to type in a plus but hit the wrong key. Easily rectifiable.
Let yourself be hypnotised.