It's Going to Be a Bumpy Night ~ A Review of the Film Classic 'All About Eve'

It is one, if not the one, role that most comes to mind when people nowadays think about Bette Davis (okay, sometime I still think of her as Baby Jane).  As Margo Channing, Davis practically spits out the dialogue and eats the scenery.  It isn’t that I think her performance was bad, by the standards of 1950 when the film ‘All About Eve’ was released, her acting was in top form, yet by today’s standards...  Of course, Davis was not the only actor in it to win it.  Amongst the cast was Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, Thelma Ritter, George Sanders, and of course, Marilyn Monroe as a starlet trying to get her big break by casting couch.

            For those of you unfamiliar with this classic movie allow me to spoil it for you.  The story is about a famous Broadway dramatic actress, Davis, who is still playing roles meant for ingénues though she recently turned forty (save your gasping for later).  Her best friends are Lloyd and Karen Richards (BTW, Celeste Holm is still alive).  Lloyd is a playwright who apparently writes exclusively for Margo Channing.  Karen, as Lloyd’s wife, spends her life walking around in fur coats and sleeping in a separate bed from that of her husband (because married couples NEVER shared a bed in the 50’s and only had sex on their anniversaries). 

Margo’s boyfriend is Bill Sampson who directs most of her productions.  He is 32, thus eight years younger, whom Davis claims will always look as if he is 32.  Far be it for me to disagree with the great Bette Davis or her alter ego Margo Channing, but Merrill as Sampson looks much older than 32 in the film, but that might be because of the way people dressed in a more repressive era. 

            As I was watching the film recently I thought about two things; one, how it lends itself to be a fantastic drinking game; two, how the dialogue would be handled by actors today.  In fact, reading the some of the better lines http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042192/quotes and hearing them translated by the actors using over-the-top gestures and alliteration I wondered if they would sound more sane being uttered by George Clooney or Meryl Streep.  When Davis as 40 year old Margo utters, “I’ll admit that I have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail like a salted peanut,” I admit I cringed.  That sentence doesn’t even make sense, “like a salted peanut,” (really?) the line is overwritten and Davis delivers it as if she is auditioning to be a professional barfly.  In fact, I would state that the only two performances cut mustard by today’s standards - George Sanders’s theater critic and life observer, Addison DeWitt (get it? he has wit) and Thelma Ritter as Birdie, Margo’s personal white Mammy.  In fact, her summary after hearing Eve go through her Dickensonian life is to add, “What a story!  Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.”  I’m assuming that the audience of nearly sixty years ago would have found that line as funny then as I do now.

            Of course, the worst acting award for this movie would sadly go to the title character of Eve played by Queen Nefretiri herself, Anne Baxter.  There is such earnestness in her performance that I longed for her to call out for Moses.  She was more believable as a Queen of Egypt than she was as a small town girl who yearns for stardom.  In ‘Eve’ Baxter was cloying and about as entertaining to watch as a garage band on a public access channel.  Why she cast in the role leaves me to ponder.  Perhaps much like Monroe’s Claudia Caswell, maybe Baxter made herself available to “unhappy rabbit” theatrical producers.  Actually, she was cast because she resembled Claudette Colbert who was originally cast. Oh, least I forget to mention, she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role. 

            I do know good lines when I hear them, but the problem with ‘Eve’ is that there are so many good lines that they got in the way of the execution of the plot.  The lame brain running out of gas scheme made me think that this merry band of theatrical performers were too stupid ever to escape New York.  As crafty writer’s wife Karen sinks deep into her seat as her husband quizzes her about the gas and then trots off in search of it at a neighboring farmhouse (what man ever not notices when the fuel gage is down when he gets in a car to drive?) it just seemed too pat, especially when Karen hears Margo confess about what it means to be an aging woman. 

That was another thing that gave me a serious case of the gripes, practically every scene had some declaration of what it is like to be the fairer sex.  How men do not age and women do and so forth.  I mean, come on, that garbage could only be written by a man!  Do men not have receding hairlines?  Do they not develop beer guts?  If you cut them, do they not burp?  Oh, for the love of God, what do men and women expect when they are sleeping single in single beds?

Despite my criticism, ‘Eve’ has survived as a classic film because it does have a lot going for it.  Marilyn Monroe, though only appearing in two scenes, is funny and charming.  Some of the lines, and I’m even talking about lesser known ones, are very sharp and makes you wish that more people talked like that although not about aging actresses and what it means to be a woman.  (I should note that it won an Academy Award for writing.)  There is, of course, the exposing of Eve and the revelation that she was paid $500.00 bucks to leave Milwaukee (insert Milwaukee joke here).  Overall, I would like to see this film reworked and presented to a new generation of film buffs.  Even if they used the old script, especially if they used the old script, I think the film would be something that any humorist or amateur historian would adore seeing.  Further, ‘Eve’ is a testament to a time when such acting was considered good acting.  Maybe in 2064 audiences will look at movies we of today think are well done and proclaim, ‘God, they thought this was good?’

In case you did not know, ‘All About Eve’ was best picture in 1950. 

© Westerfield 2007