All About Eve

All About Eve is a1950 movie drama written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, from the story The Wisdom of Eve, by Mary Orr.

Bette Davis plays Margo Channing, a highly regarded, aging Broadway actress, with Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, a 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.

It was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture. Widely regarded as a classic, it has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Plot

Margo Channing is the biggest star on Broadway but is beginning to show her age. She encounters a young woman named Eve who claims to be her biggest fan, and who worms her way into Margo's life, eventually becoming her secretary. Gradually, it is revealed that Eve is more scheming and duplicitous than she seems. She begins working to supplant Margo: she takes the role of her understudy and engineers Margo's absence so that she can play her role onstage. Eve gives such a good performance that her own career as a theatre star begins to take off, and she becomes a bigger star than Margo. At the end of the film, Eve herself encounters an apparently besotted young fan, and it is implied that the cycle will continue.

Background

While performing in The Two Mrs. Carrolls during 1943 and 1944, Elisabeth 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 Mary Orr, who used it as the basis for a story The Wisdom of Eve. In the story, Orr attributed a more ruthless character to the girl, and allowed 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 that the conniving girl would be a useful addition to his own ideas. He sent a memo to Darryl F. Zanuck saying it "fits in with an original idea 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. He removed Margo Channing's husband completely and replaced 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 that the audience would not recognise 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". Staggs, Sam: All About "All About Eve". St Martin's Press, 2001. ISBN 0312273150

Casting and characters

Although the role of Margo Channing was recognised almost immediately as one of the best in Bette Davis's career, Davis was not the first choice. The Channing character was originally conceived as genteel and knowingly humorous, and Claudette Colbert was signed to play the role, however she severely injured her back and was forced to withdraw before filming began. Among those considered and rejected for the part were Mankiewicz's original choice, Susan Hayward, considered by Zanuck to be "too young", and Marlene Dietrich, considered to be "too German". Zanuck favored Barbara Stanwyck but she was not available. Gertrude Lawrence was considered, but when her agent suggested "wouldn't it be nice if Gertie sat by the piano and sang", Mankiewicz refused to consider her any further. Zanuck then called Davis, who was finishing work on Payment on Demand. She read the script, which she declared was one of the best she had ever read, and accepted the role.

Jeanne Crain was selected to play Eve Harrington despite Zanuck's reservations that she lacked "bitch quality" but was ruled out when she became pregnant. Anne Baxter, who had recently won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Razor's Edge took her place.

The role of Bill Sampson was originally intended for John Garfield or Ronald Reagan. Reagan's wife Nancy Davis was considered for the role of Karen Richards and Jose Ferrer for the role of Addison DeWitt. Zsa Zsa Gabor actively sought the role of Phoebe without realizing that the producers were considering her, along with Angela Lansbury, for the role of Miss Caswell.

The final cast was comprised of 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", Addison DeWitt, a theatre critic. Mankiewicz greatly admired the actress Thelma Ritter, and wrote the character of Birdie Coonan for her after working with her on A Letter to Three Wives (1949). As Coonan was the only character immediately suspicious of Eve Harrington, he was confident that Ritter would contribute a shrewd characterisation that would cast doubt on Harrington, and provide 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 Addison DeWitt as a "graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art". Monroe was cast despite Zanuck's initial antipathy, and his belief that 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.

The film opens with the image of an award trophy, described by Addison 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 to actors which was sculpted to look like the one of Sarah Siddons used in the film. The award has been given annually with past honorees including Angela Lansbury, Bernadette Peters, Celeste Holm, and Barbara Rush to name a few.

Awards

Academy Awards (USA)

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

Golden Globe Awards (USA)

Won: 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)

Won: Best Motion Picture - Darryl F. Zanuck
Won: Best Director - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Won: Best Actress - Bette Davis

DGA Awards (USA)

Won: Oustanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Cannes Film Festival (France)

Won: Best Actress Prize - Bette Davis
Won: Jury Special Prize - Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Nominated: Grand Prize of the Jury - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

BAFTA (UK)

Won: Best Film - Darryl F. Zanuck

Late recognition

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 on 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.

Tagline

It's all about women—and their men!

References

External link

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