ALL ABOUT EVE (1951)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Joseph Mankiewicz

Cast: Bette Davis / Anne Baxter / George Sanders

Plot

A young and ambitious woman manipulates her way to the top of the theater world by deceiving and betraying an aging stage icon and her circle.

What I Liked

Full of sarcasm, irony, and metaphors, the dialogue overflows with so much wit it is literally unbelievable, but constantly entertaining.  Mankiewicz’s script, full of name-dropping, innuendos, and quips, gives the characters dialogue that real people would never use, but this was likely his intent.  The references and vocabulary accentuate the pretentions of many of the characters.  Thus the frilly dialogue is but a finely woven veil covering the ugly truth beneath it.

For the most part, the characters are rich and multi-dimensional.  Complicated psychological concepts are present in all of the main characters.  None more so than that of Margo, played magnificently by Bette Davis.  A mess of pretention, melodrama, and immaturity through much of the film, Margo is also sensitive, loving, and forthright in her unguarded moments.  Davis gives the character a larger-than-life impact while still making her feel like a natural, fragile, and very real person.

The whole film seems to be a more than two hour study of the different ways in which the surface impression can be very different from the underlying reality.  This depth fleshes out a rich, fascinating movie.

What I Didn’t Like

I prefer real dialogue that seems to be coming from real people because I feel more easily drawn into a film that way.  It was not easy for me to be drawn quickly into this film because the dialogue could not be uttered by anyone in a casual conversation without it seeming like they are indeed reciting lines from a 1950s or earlier film script.  But I was eventually drawn in, largely because of what I wrongly thought to be a flaw.

Also, the film is overlong.  The point of the plot was made well before the film reached its conclusion.  It seemed it could have ended a good 15 or 20 minutes earlier than it did.  Most unnecessary was the very final scene, which seemed so contrived and obvious it weakened the otherwise well-developed film.

Most Memorable Scene

I’d have to pick two.  The first has Margo lying in bed by herself, talking to her boyfriend on the phone.  With no one around, the otherwise loud and self-obsessed diva is quiet and vulnerable in a very convincing way thanks to Davis’s performance.  This was the first moment of the movie where I felt truly engaged and that the film had more to offer than your typical show business story.

The other is the party scene where a young Marilyn Monroe appears.  She doesn’t play a significant part in the plot, but she is visually the most vibrant element of the entire movie, not just with physical beauty but with a sultry allure that steals the scene even from Davis’s own formidable charisma.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5