All About Eve

One of the great “talkies” from one of the great talkers. Talk, talk, talk -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz can reel it out, and about 90% of it is trenchant, wicked fun. This definitive backstage drama/satire came up in my intermittent Bette Davis retrospective, and its obvious relation to Being Julia moved it to the head of the queue. Theatrical in subject, form, and attitude, this is not a film calculated to win me over, but it does -- the vivid characters, the memorable lines, the great readings, the unblinking but jolly view of human venality, all of that which flows from Eve’s passion, her lust for the spotlight. The moral heart of the film, or absence thereof, is of course the viperish critic Addison DeWitt, elegantly etched in acid by George Sanders, winner of one of the film’s 6 Oscars, out of a still-record 14 nominations. Mankiewicz won two, and Zanuck took home Best Picture, but Bette Davis and Anne Baxter split the Best Actress vote so neither won, a delicious bit of confirming irony for a film all about an awards ceremony. An irony matched only by the subsequent marriage of Davis and Garry Merrill, even though his enamored theater director is the one weak spot in the film for me. About La Bette, what else can be said? -- Margo Channing is one of the classic performances, endlessly recycled by generations of female impersonators. Baxter is also definitive as the ruthless ingenue. And always startling in the film’s unspooling of delights is the appearance of a young and luscious Marilyn Monroe. This parable of stardom is ablaze with stars, still glowing in Hollywood’s firmament. (1950, dvd, r.) *9*