All About Eve

All About Eve was made in 1950. It won the academy award that year with its story of an aging actress who is toppled from her position as the leading star on Broadway by an ambitious newcomer. This plot seems pretty ironic now, because much the same thing has actually happened, and to two of the actresses employed in this film. Bette Davis, who played the slightly sodden and sinking grade dame, retired shortly after she finished the picture. But a young girl who made her first movie appearance in All About Eve has since then become a sort of national symbol. Her name is Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe's contribution to the film is mercifully unimportant, but her appearance was an inspired bit of type casting. She acts the part of a vastly untalented young thing with only her natural equipment to offer prospective producers. That she does not win the "big role" according to the story of the picture, may be a comment on the unreality of the drama.

The same inspiration which led director Joseph L. Mankiewicz to select Marilyn Monroe for the part must have made him also choose Bette Davis. Her interpretation of an actress who cannot quite stop acting when she is off stage exposes the sadness and emptiness of a woman who can only make believe. It is almost frightening to watch the precision with which Bette Davis disassembled the mechanism of her character and lays bare the instincts of a child.

The newcomer in the story, however, is anything but childlike. Anne Baxter portrays her as a conniving liar who bides behind an assumed front of innocence. Miss Baxter manages to make the sudden transitions in characterization appear smooth and effortless. George Sanders, though, won the only Oscar for acting in All About Eve. His is the supporting role of a cynical critic, a suave and predatory animal which feeds off the talents of others.

Joseph L. Mankicwicz demonstrated his talents as a director when he picked these actors for the film and molded them into a cast. The script, which he wrote himself, shows that he was equally as skillful as an author. The dialogue does tend to run into long speeches in the early scenes, but that fault is soon balanced by a good many funny--and not inappropriate--scenes. He handled the development of characters well, too. Not until late in the last reel does the audience really know all about Eve.

Hollywood likes to look at show business, but usually the result is a waste of film. Life in even a pajama factory is often more suited to drama. This time, however, Mankiewicz caught some unusually interesting show people in a really dramatic situation. He has put them in a picture which not only merits the honors it once earned, but also deserves to have lived for five years.