All About Eve (1950)
directed & written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
"Fasten your seat belt. It's going to be a bumpy night"
So says All About Eve is a tour de force about an aging stage actress, Margo Channing (Bette Davis), and a fan, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), who insinuates herself into Channing's life. On the surface, it's a backstage tale of actresses, playwrights, and critics. It's also about how we sabotage ourselves - Margo is a talented actress, but she's convinced she's aging out of the great roles and it helps make her susceptible to the blandishments of Eve. It's also one of the bitchiest movies ever, filled with sharp-tongued retorts, witticisms, and sarcastic quips.
Bette Davis is someone who could be great and could be terrible. She turned into a pitiful caricature eventually, reduced to starring in campy trash (and I say this as someone who loves Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte). In this she's great, balancing between a self-assured star and an insecure mess.
Anne Baxter is good, too. I'm really only aware of her from The Ten Commandments and her spot on Columbo. Her deft turn from sycophant to master manipulator is excellent.
At the pinnacle of his most suavely evil, George Sanders (one of my favorite actors) as the critic Addison DeWitt is perfection. His interaction with Marilyn Monroe (in one of her earlier performances) as a ditzy actress is hilarious. His demolition of Exe is practically Satanic.
Among the rest of the cast standouts are Thelma Ritter, who's always good, and Celeste Holm.
I'm not the biggest Bette Davis fan, but she's so good here and gets to deliver some plummy lines. The script and dialogue in this movie are so good they really make me despair at the crappiness of so much of what Hollywood spews out these days.
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