{"id":8685,"date":"2010-03-10T16:57:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T00:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=8685"},"modified":"2010-03-10T20:05:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T04:05:00","slug":"all-about-eve-joseph-l-mankiewicz-1950-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=8685","title":{"rendered":"All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 In 1951\u00a0George Sanders won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, as the acerbic\u00a0stage critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>.\u00a0 His performance\u00a0was one of a stellar\u00a0ensemble cast which includes Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter.<\/p>\n

The film opens with a scene at an annual awards banquet given\u00a0to honor the best theater\u00a0performances of the year.\u00a0 Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) begins his VO narration, just as the emcee announces the “distinguished\u00a0achievement” award to Eve Harrington.\u00a0 The irony of the award is realized as we revert into a flashback eight months\u00a0prior\u00a0and discover\u00a0how much Eve (Anne Baxter) really\u00a0has achieved.<\/p>\n

Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is a 40 year old\u00a0acclaimed stage actress, still playing a twenty-something ingenue.\u00a0 Eve is nothing more than a die-hard fan who idolizes Margo, and stands outside the stage door every night just to get a glimpse of her heroine.<\/p>\n

One night Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), the playwright’s wife,\u00a0takes pity on Eve and invites her into Margo’s dressing room,\u00a0where\u00a0Margo\u00a0is\u00a0swept up into Eve’s hard luck story.\u00a0 Eve is offered a job as Margo’s assistant and out-performs each task with supreme\u00a0diligence, predicting Margo’s every need, and exceeding her expectations.<\/p>\n

Birdie (Thelma Ritter) is Margo’s dresser and personal maid, and the only female in the bunch with a good BS detector.\u00a0 She’s on to Eve,\u00a0and every rolling of the eye or sarcastic reply isn’t enough to\u00a0alert Margo of Eve’s ulterior motive.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the rug is pulled out from under Margo and she learns that Eve has become her understudy and is vying for the attentions of her friends and lover.\u00a0 Enter the powerful critic Addison DeWitt, who above all else loves a great performance.\u00a0 As Eve ensnares DeWitt into her trap, he plays the devil’s advocate and\u00a0allows himself to be used by\u00a0writing columns favoring Eve’s performance\u00a0while\u00a0taunting Margo’s.\u00a0 When Eve decides to move onto her next victim, Addison\u00a0informs\u00a0her that he is “nobody’s fool” and instructs her on how things are going to be.<\/p>\n

Witty dialogue, smooth and effortless acting, expert costume design and perfect direction is what distinguishes this film\u00a0as a classic and a template for filmmaking – it won\u00a0Best Picture for 1950.\u00a0 Mankiewicz received an Oscar for both writing and directing, as did eight-time winner\u00a0Edith Head for Costumes.<\/p>\n

The two powerful leads\u00a0Bette Davis and Anne Baxter were nominated for Best Actress Oscars, but neither won.\u00a0 George Sanders deservedly received his.\u00a0 Sanders was an outstanding actor in his own right and performed in many notable films, two of which I\u00a0highly recommend The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. \u00a0 In 1951\u00a0George Sanders won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, as the acerbic\u00a0stage critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve\u00a0.\u00a0 His performance\u00a0was one of a stellar\u00a0ensemble cast which includes Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter. The film opens with a scene at an annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}