Eve

All About Eve, is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve", by Mary Orr.
The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star. Anne Baxter plays Eve Harrington, a willingly helpful young fan who insinuates herself into Channing's life, ultimately threatening Channing's career and her personal relationships. George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Barbara Bates, Gary Merrill and Thelma Ritter also appear, and the film provided one of Marilyn Monroe's earliest important roles.
Praised by critics at the time of its release, All About Eve was nominated for 14 Academy Awards (a feat that was unmatched until the 1997 film, Titanic) and won six, including Best Picture. As of 2010, All About Eve is still the only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations (Davis and Baxter as Best Actress, Holm and Ritter as Best Supporting Actress). All About Eve was selected in 1990 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and was among the first 50 films to be registered. All About Eve appeared at #16 on AFI's 1998 list of the 100 best American films.



Plot

At an awards dinner, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) — the newest and brightest star on Broadway — is being presented the Sarah Siddons Award for her breakout performance as Cora in Footsteps on the Ceiling. Theatre critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) observes the proceedings and, in a sardonic voiceover, recalls how Eve's star rose as quickly as it did.
The film flashes back a year. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is one of the biggest stars on Broadway, but despite her success she is forty and bemoaning her age, knowing what it will mean for her career. After a performance one night, Margo's close friend Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), wife of the play's author Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), meets besotted fan Eve Harrington in the cold alley outside the stage door. Recognizing her from having passed her many times in the alley (as Eve claims to have seen every performance of Margo's current play, Aged in Wood), Karen takes her backstage to meet Margo. Eve tells the group gathered in Margo's dressing room — Karen and Lloyd, Margo's boyfriend Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), a director who is eight years her junior, and Margo's maid Birdie (Thelma Ritter) — that she followed Margo's last theatrical tour to New York after seeing her in a play in San Francisco. She tells a moving and involving story of a difficult life, including being orphaned and losing her young husband in the recent war. She is becomingly humble and flattering in her idolization of Margo. In response, Margo quickly befriends Eve, moves her into her home, and offers her a job as her assistant, leaving Birdie, who instinctively dislikes Eve, feeling put out.

Anne Baxter in wig and costume as Margo Channing's understudy

While maintaining a seamless outward appearance of humility and a desire only to serve, Eve is gradually shown to be working to supplant Margo, scheming to become her understudy behind her back (driving wedges between Margo and Lloyd and between Margo and Bill) and conspiring with an unsuspecting Karen to cause Margo to miss a performance. Eve, knowing in advance she will go on, invites the city's theatre critics to the play that night, which is a triumph. Eve makes a pass at Bill, but he rejects her. Following a scathing newspaper column by Addison, Margo and Bill reconcile, dine with the Richardses, and decide to marry. That same night at the restaurant, Eve blackmails Karen into telling Lloyd to give her the part of Cora, threatening to tell Margo of Karen's role in Margo's missed performance. Before Karen can act, Margo announces to everyone's surprise that she does not wish to play Cora and would prefer to continue in Aged in Wood, even being willing to take it on tour. Eve secures the role and attempts to climb higher by using Addison, who is beginning to doubt her veracity. Just before the premiere of her play at the Shubert in New Haven, Eve presents Addison with her next plan: to marry Lloyd, who, she claims, has come to her professing his love and his eagerness to leave his wife for her. Now, Eve exults, Lloyd will write brilliant plays designed for her. Addison is infuriated that Eve has attempted to use him and reveals that he knows her back story is all lies. Her real name is Gertrude Slojinski, and she is no war widow, no orphan, no follower of Margo's tour. Before meeting Margo, she had been paid to leave town after her affair with her boss, a brewer in Wisconsin. Addison blackmails Eve, informing her that she will not be marrying Lloyd or anyone else; in exchange for Addison's silence, she now "belongs" to him.
The film returns to the opening scene in which Eve, now a shining Broadway star headed for Hollywood, is presented with her award. In her speech, she thanks Margo and Bill and Lloyd and Karen with characteristic effusion, while all four stare back at her coldly. After the awards ceremony, Eve hands her award to Addison, skips a party in her honor, and returns home alone, where she encounters a young fan who has slipped into her apartment and fallen asleep. The young girl professes her adoration and, as if without Eve's noticing it, begins at once to insinuate herself into her life. "Phoebe" (Barbara Bates), as she calls herself, answers the door to find Addison returning with Eve's award. Addison leaves without entering and, while Eve rests in the other room, Phoebe dons Eve's elegant costume robe and poses in front of a multi-paned mirror, holding the award as if it were a crown. The mirrors transform Phoebe into multiple images of herself, and she bows regally, as if accepting the award to thunderous applause, while triumphant music plays.




Production


Origin
The story of All About Eve originated in an anecdote related to Mary Orr by actress Elisabeth Bergner. While performing in The Two Mrs. Carrolls during 1943 and 1944, Bergner allowed a young fan to become part of her household and employed her as an assistant, but later regretted her generosity when the woman attempted to undermine her. Referring to her only as "the terrible girl," Bergner related the events to Orr, who used it as the basis for her short story "The Wisdom of Eve" (1946). In the story, Orr gives the girl a more ruthless character and allows her to succeed in stealing the career of the older actress. Bergner later confirmed the basis of the story in her autobiography Bewundert viel, und viel gescholten (Greatly Admired and Greatly Scolded).
In 1949, Mankiewicz was considering a story about an aging actress and, upon reading "The Wisdom of Eve," felt the conniving girl would be a useful added element. He sent a memo to Darryl F. Zanuck saying it "fits in with an original idea [of mine] and can be combined. Superb starring role for Susan Hayward." Mankiewicz presented a film treatment of the combined stories under the title Best Performance. He changed the main character's name from Margola Cranston to Margo Channing and retained several of Orr's characters, Eve Harrington, Lloyd and Karen Richards, and Miss Caswell, while removing Margo Channing's husband completely and replacing him with a new character, Bill Sampson. The intention was to depict Channing in a new relationship and allow Eve Harrington to threaten both Channing's professional and personal lives. Mankiewicz also added the characters Addison DeWitt, Birdie Coonan, Max Fabian, and Phoebe.
Zanuck was enthusiastic and provided numerous suggestions for improving the screenplay. In some sections he felt Mankiewicz's writing lacked subtlety or provided excessive detail. He suggested diluting Birdie Coonan's jealousy of Eve so the audience would not recognize Eve as a villain until much later in the story. Zanuck reduced the screenplay by about 50 pages and chose the title All About Eve from the opening scenes in which Addison DeWitt says he will soon tell "more of Eve ... All about Eve, in fact."






Casting and characters

The principal cast of All About Eve. (Left to right) Gary Merrill, Bette Davis, George Sanders,
Anne Baxter, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm

Bette Davis was cast as Margo Channing after Claudette Colbert severely injured her back and was forced to withdraw shortly before filming began.
Davis, who had recently ended an 18-year association with Warner Brothers after several poorly received films, later commented she had read the script in one sitting and immediately accepted the role after realizing it was one of the best she had ever read. Channing had originally been conceived as genteel and knowingly humorous, but with the casting of Davis, Mankiewicz revised the character to be more abrasive. Among other actresses considered before Colbert were Mankiewicz's original inspiration, Susan Hayward, rejected by Zanuck as "too young," Marlene Dietrich, dismissed as "too German," and Gertrude Lawrence, who was ruled out of contention when her agent suggested, "Wouldn't it be nice if Gertie sat by the piano and sang?" Zanuck favored Barbara Stanwyck, but she was not available. Tallulah Bankhead and Ingrid Bergman were also considered. Joan Crawford was also considered for the part but Crawford was already working on the film The Damned Don't Cry. Mankiewicz praised Davis for both her professionalism and the calibre of her performance, but in later years continued to discuss how Colbert would have played the role.
Anne Baxter had spent a decade in supporting roles and had won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Razor's Edge. She got the role of Eve Harrington after the first choice, Jeanne Crain, became pregnant. Crain was at the height of her popularity and had established a career playing likable heroines; Zanuck believed she lacked the "bitch virtuosity" required by the part, and audiences would not accept her as a deceitful character.
The role of Bill Sampson was originally intended for John Garfield or Ronald Reagan. Reagan's future wife Nancy Davis was considered for Karen Richards and Jose Ferrer for Addison DeWitt. Zsa Zsa Gabor actively sought the role of Phoebe without realizing the producers were considering her, along with Angela Lansbury, for Miss Caswell.
Mankiewicz greatly admired Thelma Ritter and wrote the character of Birdie Coonan for her after working with her on A Letter to Three Wives in 1949. As Coonan was the only one immediately suspicious of Eve Harrington, he was confident Ritter would contribute a shrewd characterisation casting doubt on Harrington and providing a counterpoint to the more "theatrical" personalities of the other characters. Marilyn Monroe, relatively unknown at the time, was cast as Miss Caswell, referred to by DeWitt as a "graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art." Monroe got the part after a lobbying campaign by her agent, despite Zanuck's initial antipathy and belief she was better suited to comedy. Angela Lansbury had been originally considered for the role. The inexperienced Monroe was cowed by Bette Davis, and took 11 takes to complete the scene in the theatre lobby with the star; when Davis barked at her, Monroe left the set to vomit. Smaller roles were filled by Gregory Ratoff as the producer Max Fabian, Barbara Bates as Phoebe, a young fan of Eve Harrington, and Walter Hampden as the master of ceremonies at an award presentation.




A young and then-unknown Marilyn Monroe as Miss Caswell in a scene with Anne Baxter, Bette Davis and George Sanders




Cast


Bette Davis as Margo Channing
Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington
George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
Celeste Holm as Karen Richards
Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards
Thelma Ritter as Birdie
Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian
Marilyn Monroe as Miss Caswell
Barbara Bates as Phoebe




Response


Critical reaction


All About Eve received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics upon its release on October 13, 1950 at a New York City premiere. The film's competitor, Sunset Boulevard, released the same year, drew similar praise, and the two were often favorably compared. Film critic Bosley Crowther loved the film, stating it was "a fine Darryl Zanuck production, excellent music and on air ultra-class complete the superior satire".
Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times has praised the film, saying Bette Davis' character "veteran actress Margo Channing in All About Eve was her greatest role".[6] A collection of reviews from the film's release are stored on the website Rottentomatoes.com, and All About Eve has garnered 100% positive reviews there, making it "Certified fresh." Boxoffice.com stated that it "is a classic of the American cinema -- to this day the quintessential depiction of ruthless ambition in the entertainment industry, with legendary performances from Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders anchoring one of the very best films from one of Hollywood's very best Golden Era filmmakers: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It is a film that belongs on every collector's shelf—whether on video or DVD. It is a classic that deserves better than what Fox has given it."




Awards and honors


Academy Awards


The film won six Academy Awards.
Best Picture—20th Century-Fox (Darryl F. Zanuck, producer)
Best Supporting Actor—George Sanders
Best Costume Design for a Black-and-White film—Edith Head and Charles Le Maire
Best Director—Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Best Writing, Screenplay—Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Best Sound Recording—Thomas T. Moulton
Nominated: Best Leading Actress—Anne Baxter
Nominated: Best Leading Actress—Bette Davis
Nominated: Best Supporting Actress—Celeste Holm
Nominated: Best Supporting Actress—Thelma Ritter
Nominated: Best Set Direction for a Black-and-White film—George W. Davis, Thomas Little, Walter M. Scott, and Lyle R. Wheeler
Nominated: Best Cinematography for a Black-and-White film—Milton R. Krassner
Nominated: Best Film Editing—Barbara McLean
Nominated: Best Music Score—Alfred Newman




Golden Globe Awards


Best Motion Picture Screenplay—Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Nominated: Best Drama Motion Picture—Darryl F. Zanuck, producer
Nominated: Best Drama Motion Picture Actress—Bette Davis
Nominated: Best Motion Picture Director—Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Nominated: Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture—George Sanders
Nominated: Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture—Thelma Ritter


NY Film Critics Circle Awards


Best Motion Picture—Darryl F. Zanuck
Best Director—Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Best Actress—Bette Davis