Best Picture #23 - All About Eve - 1950
Where Una sees the finest assemblage of actors with names that end with 'e'.
There isn't much I could tell you about All About Eve that hasn't already been said. It has killer performances, spot-on casting, and a script filled with lines that have not only become part of the pop culture landscape, but that make you wish you'd thought of them yourself. All that, and behind-the-scenes drama where life imitates art imitating life devoted to making art.
Yeah, it's good. You should see it for yourself.
Aging Hollywood actress Bette Davis plays aging Broadway actress Margot Channing. And by 'aging' I mean that she's 40, but feeling her age even more in a profession that values youth, having roles written with her in mind, yet described as 'a girl of twenty', and dating her younger director.
So when she starts to suspect that her new, star-struck assistant, Eve, has designs on her entire life (career, beau, etc) who could blame her for guzzling dry martinis and sabbotaging her boyfriend's birthday party in an iconic scene. Part of what's so great about it is that everyone knows what Margot is going to do - she's obviously done this before - and then she does so with such deliberate glee. Fasten your seatbelts, indeed.
It's also the first award-winner that opens with an awards dinner, and the pasted-on smiles and half-hearted applause of those Eve has stepped on along her way to this glorious achievement. In the end, the true difference between Eve and Margot is that Margot never pretended to be anyone other than herself, while Eve's greatest performance was the one played-out among the people who unwittingly launched her career.
The supporting performances are pretty incredible - Celeste Holm, George Sanders, and a brief, memorable bit from Marilyn Monroe. ("Why do they always look like unhappy rabbits?" she asks about a producer she's about to cozy up to. "Because they are unhappy rabbits" is the reply.)
Legend has it that Anne Baxter, as Eve, insisted on being entered into the lead actress category come Oscar time, and with votes split between Baxter and Davis, Judy Holiday walked away with the award for her performance in 'Born Yesterday.' Baxter defended her choice at the time by stating that the movie is titled 'All About Eve - not All About Margot.' Davis was also dating her married, younger co-star at the time, so their on-screen chemistry was real. The friendship between Davis and Holm's characters, however? Acting. There was tension between them from day one. It was so bad that after a take where Holm had to laugh on cue, and Davis admitted that was something she could never do, the director had them do the scene again, just to give Holm a chance to shine again in front of her tempermental co-star.
Next up: Grace defined - Gene Kelly in An American in Paris!