Never Seen It #269: All About Eve

That I should want to blog at all, suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability. But that, in itself, is probably the reason. You're an improbable website, PoYB, and so am I. We have that in common. Also, our contempt for humanity and inability to love, and be loved, to watch 400 movies we've never seen before, insatiable ambition, and talent. We deserve each other.

All About Eve

1950

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

No comment on whether this is "the bitchiest movie ever made." I'm not really in the business of calling other people bitches. Unless that's what you're going for. If Bette Davis was trying to be "bitchy" in this movie, then she succeeded. That was her character. Bitchy but, crucially, self-aware about the bitchiness. That sort of "I know I'm snarky but I can't help it, I want people to like me too, that's just how my twisted mind gets me there" character trait that I've always been fond of. The worst kind of person is a dick and denies being one. Perhaps if we're describing Eve, on the other hand, that's the most efficient way to do it.

Jumping right into the character analyses today. I can't help it! It's that type of movie! That's what makes All About Eve great—the characters are so fucking easy to understand. I'm counting seven characters who are recognizable and fully realized immediately, the moment they appear on the screen (and that's not including the bite-sized role from a then-unknown Marilyn Monroe, who positively pops off the screen in her three minutes of time on it). There is no time wasted in establishing what makes anyone tick. You know the characters, and then right from the gun you move on to seeing how these characters are going to bounce off each other for two-plus hours.

Much of that comes from the acting (five acting Oscar noms between the cast, including a win for George Sanders and a record four actress nominations), but a lot comes from the drum-tight script from Mankiewicz too. Maybe 80% of the dialogue consists of one character sardonically putting down another character. When I picture Bette Davis delivering her lines, I also picture her with her hands around someone's neck, squeezing. That never actually happens, but she lands each quips like it's happening the entire movie.

There are themes that I think we could work our way around, if that's what this exercise requires. The one that I think the film really wants you to think about—especially based on the new character introduced at the very end—is the cyclical nature of stardom in Hollywood, due to the inherent ageism for women in those roles. Who did Margo Channing replace? When will Phoebe be replaced? We aren't privy to the endless chain of backstabbing in either direction beyond the Eve of it all, but we know it's there. And it's not really the fault of the people involved, but more so society's fault, the system being designed to toss out the old and become incensed with the new. There will be a day in the future when Sydney Sweeney no longer drives conservative men to white-supremacy-laden lust, just like there eventually came a day when the youth no longer knew who Kim Carnes' song "Bette Davis Eyes" was about.

Not that all that isn't interesting, because it definitely is, but I think I was more tuned into the fact that all this was set among the theater people, the theater scene, and the bitchiness that's inherent to that. I adored the scene at the end of the party that began with some of our main characters sitting along the stairs, half-drunk and bullshitting about why the theater is important, and what it all means. It eventually devolves into a pissing match with a fiery Margo, but we get there naturally. Theater critic Addison DeWitt is just as bitchy, if not more so. (The supplemental theme of "theater vs. Hollywood" is definitely here but waaay before my time, so I have nothing to say about it.) Shit, I should've taken notes about what they were saying, but that whole scene felt so-lived in.

I wonder if that's because I knew what they were talking about on an emotional level. The theater, but the arts in general. The pursuit of meaning, and how that's what motivates all these people to do what they do. Including Eve! Who is being duplicitous, and yet still is there for the same reasons. She wants meaning. She wants to know greatness. For a certain type of person—me, you, the wackos in this film—there is no more important pursuit than this. Fulfillment can only be fully achieved through art and entertainment. I suppose that's maybe why the characters felt so real to me—I know them well. Could also just be that it's an extremely well-made film.

All About Eve is 75 years old, and I wonder if its power is waning. #28 on the AFI list in 2008, but #211 on the BFI list in 2022. I've read a couple comparisons to Sunset Boulevard (both the year they came out and the thematic ties), and everyone seems to agree that that one has the edge on All About Eve. If you ask me (and maybe this is recency bias, who knows), I'd say that this was one of the more enjoyable experiences I had in black-and-white, pretty much ever. Film Club is making a habit of beating back allegations of "older movies are tougher to connect to" lately, and add this to the pile. Fucking GREAT.

The ending didn't leave me breathless like those 5/5-pukers usually do. Maybe that was because the last few minutes had an agenda that was immediately evident, and did nothing to surprise or shock, only depress (which is a valuable emotion to have while watching a movie, but not the one that puts movies over the top for me, usually). But I will say that All About Eve had me locked in for pretty much its entire 148-minute runtime. No dips, all quips. I have attributed that success to the acting and the script, and I can't think of any other reason now.

I still marvel at it, though. It's the type of movie that makes me marvel at its movie magic. "Movie Magic" is when a film gets me so invested that I forget I'm watching a film. Do people actually talk like this? As formidable as Bette Davis' reputation was in real life, no, I cannot imagine that she actually talked like this in real life, nor would anyone. The dialogue is so sharp as to no be realistic. And yet. That's movie magic for you. I don't care. I don't fucking care. Real life has nothing to do with it. This is the movies! All About Eve! Forget all the horrors of the world in which you live, and for a couple hours, get lost in all the horrors of the interpersonal dramas between the greats of the 1940s theater.

I'd be a bitch if I thought otherwise.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: A little late for Halloween (my bad!), but Group H has The Evil Dead zombie-shuffling toward ya.