Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Running time: 2 hrs 19 mins

Genre: Dramas



CRITIQUE:


One could not perhaps fathom that this film, which holds the record for the most Oscar nominations in moviemaking history (14 nominations, only equalled by Titanic of recent memory), does not involve a sinking ship. The spectacle in All About Eve encompasses neither hanging-for-dear-life events nor melodrama in the size of Atlantic – but titans in the art of performance. This satirical tale of two stage actresses, one an established superstar and the other an amateur ingénue, has gone down to legendary parody and endless imitation of other films. Yet this has lost none of its glimmer. Ageless and immortally resonant, it remains a razor-sharp satirizing of celebrity showbusiness, both Broadway and even, to an extension, Hollywood.


Joseph L. Mankiewicz makes use of the Citizen Kane-esque flashback structure here, to no surprise as his brother has written the screenplay for Orson Welles’s film. It begins with Eve Harrington (an ingeniously measured performance by Anne Baxter), receiving an honorary Best Actress award with all smiles and glamour but then the camera cuts to four other people in the crowd: one is Margo Channing (played to superb perfection by Bette Davis), whose face harbours that of a lion waiting to pounce for its prey. The film rolls back to the origin of the state of affairs, from the Broadway stage which it all started. Call it one of cinema’s greatest bitchery, this is a show about a rivalry of two polar opposites. Baxter radiates silky charm and effortless grace in her Eve’s innocent facade that hides a savage animal that steals, cheats, and lies to claw her way to the top of the celebrity kingdom. But this is not Eve’s film. It is, rather, about Margo Channing, an aging superstar compelled to face her fading sparkle and the cruelty of the business. And this is Bette Davis’s film, arguably one of her greatest roles which rightly deserved an Oscar if not for Judy Holliday for portraying a dumb blonde in Born Yesterday. There is a haunting persona in Davis’s Channing that makes it her very own signature role; one of cinema’s obvious amalgamation of actor and character, and all the brilliant for it. Channing is of the spoilt, self-righteous, arrogant archetype, throwing tantrums as much as possible, screwing up dinner parties and spitting harbingers of doom, ‘Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,’ with such savage wit and force – but it is in the quiet moments of Channing that is more magnificent to watch, as Davis eloquently peels layers of exterior panache to reveal a broken-down, self-deprecating woman. That scene in the car where she lays bare her inner self-awareness is what screen performance is all about.


VERDICT:

All About Eve is that rare thing in cinema, a gem that can withstand the test of time. This is one of Hollywood’s greatest celebrity-culture satires ever made. Perfectly composed, cleverly written with acid-tongue dialogues, impeccably directed and performed to astounding gravitas by Bette Davis.



RATING: A+