ALL ABOUT EVE

'''All About Eve''' is a 1950 drama film, written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the short story "The Wisdom of Eve", by Mary Orr. It features Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Thelma Ritter, Hugh Marlowe, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill and Marilyn Monroe.
The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway actress. 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. Gary Merrill, George Sanders, Hugh Marlowe, Celeste Holm 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 and won six, including Best Picture. Widely regarded as a classic in cinema history, it has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, and appeared on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century.

Contents

Plot

Production

Origin

Casting and characters

Reaction to the film

Awards

★ Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Later recognition and rankings

References

External links

Plot

Margo Channing (played by Bette Davis), is an intelligent woman, and one of the greatest, best known stars on Broadway. Despite her unmatched success, Margo is beginning to show her age when she encounters a young woman named Eve (played by Anne Baxter), putting Margo's fame to the test. Eve claims to be her biggest fan, and an aspiring actress from San Francisco, but her intentions are to slowly worm her way into Margo's life, eventually becoming her secretary. Gradually, it is revealed Eve is more scheming and duplicitous than she seems, rather than being an actual fan, she has a tumultuous plan to overthrow Margo and steal everything she has, including her boyfriend and career. Margo ignores the warnings of Eve’s devious plans from her cynical maid (played by Thelma Ritter).
Eve begins working to supplant Margo, taking the role of her understudy and, with the help of Margo's best friend, Karen (Celeste Holm), causes Margo to miss a performance so she can play her role onstage. Eve gives such a good performance her own career as a theatre star begins to take off. At the end of the film, after Eve wins a Best Actress Award for a recent play, she encounters an apparently besotted young fan who had snuck into her apartment. It is implied that the cycle of fans overthrowing their own idols, or successful celebrities will continue.

Production

Origin

The ultimate origin of the story is 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". 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 "about Eve, all about Eve". ^[1]

Casting and characters

By the time Mankiewicz began working on a screenplay, he had decided on Claudette Colbert for the role of Margo Channing, as she represented the style of actress that he envisioned for the part. He admired her "sly wit and sense of class" and felt that she would play Margo as an "elegant drunk" who would easily win the sympathy of the audience, especially in the scenes where the ruthless Eve attempts to supplant her. But Colbert was forced to withdraw after severely injuring her back, and was replaced by Bette Davis.
Davis, who had recently ended a 19-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. 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 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for ''The Razor's Edge'' the previous year. 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 quality" 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 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 despite Zanuck's initial antipathy and belief she was better suited to drama. 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. ¹
The final cast comprised Davis and Baxter, with Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson, Hugh Marlowe as the writer Lloyd Richards, Celeste Holm as his wife Karen, and George Sanders as the "venomous fish-wife" theatre critic, Addison DeWitt.
The film opens with the image of an award trophy, described by DeWitt as the "highest honor our theater knows - the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement." In 1952, a small group of distinguished Chicago theater-goers began to give an award with that name and sculpted to look like the one of Siddons used in the film to actors. It has been given annually, with past honorees including Angela Lansbury, Bernadette Peters, Celeste Holm and Barbara Rush.

Reaction to the film

''All About Eve'' received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics upon its release on October 13, 1950 at a New York City premier. The film's competitor, ''Sunset Blvd.'', released the same year, drew similar praise, and the two were often favorably compared. Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun Times'' says of Davis that "veteran actress Margo Channing in ''All About Eve'' was her greatest role".^[2] A collection of reviews from a films release are stored on the website Rottentomatoes.com, and ''All About Eve'' has gathered over 100 out of 100 positive reviews, making it "Certified fresh". ''Boxoffice.com'' stated that "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."^[3]

Awards

===Academy Awards (USA)===

★ 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 (USA)===

★ 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
===NYFCC Awards (USA)===

★ Best Motion Picture - Darryl F. Zanuck

★ Best Director - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

★ Best Actress - Bette Davis
===DGA Awards (USA)

★ Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Cannes Film Festival (France)===

★ Best Actress Prize - Bette Davis

★ Jury Special Prize - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

★ Nominated: Grand Prize of the Festival - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
===BAFTA (United Kingdom)===

★ Best Film from any Source - Darryl F. Zanuck

Later recognition and rankings

''All About Eve'' has become one of the most well known films in the history of cinema, thus spawning countless rankings over time.
In 1952, Tallulah Bankhead played Margo Channing on a radio adaptation for NBC's ''The Big Show''. The part of Karen Richards was played by Mary Orr, who wrote the original story that ''All About Eve'' was based on. Ironically, Bette Davis played three roles that had been originated on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead (in ''Dark Victory'', ''Reflected Glory'' and ''The Little Foxes'') — Bankhead and Davis were considered to be somewhat similar in style, with Davis a more disciplined performer who understood film better than Bankhead. In 1970, the film was made into a successful Broadway musical, ''Applause'', with Lauren Bacall in the role of Margo Channing. In 1989, the movie was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The film received in 1997 a placement on the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame. In 1998, the movie ranked #16 on the American Film Institute list of the 100 Best American movies of all time. In 2003, the character of Eve Harrington (interpreted by Anne Baxter) ranked #23 on the American Film Institute list of the 50 Best Villains of American Cinema. In 2005, the phrase "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" (said in the film by the character of Margo Channing) ranked #9 on the American Film Institute list of the 100 Best Movie Quotes of American Cinema.

References

1. Staggs, Sam: ''All About "All About Eve"''. St Martin's Press, 2001. ISBN 0-312-27315-0

2. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author-16/
3. http://www.boxoffice.com/boxoffice_scr/boxoffice_dvd_result.asp?terms=12

External links

★ Script from Internet movie script database

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