This is a version of a review airing on ABC Radio Ballarat and South West Victoria on October 16, 2020.
This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.
(PG) ★★★★★
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Cast: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, Gregory Ratoff, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Bates, Walter Hampden.
 |
| "Yes, I know I've got 'Bette Davis eyes'. I'm Bette fucking Davis." |
Hollywood loves movies about movies. From Sunset Boulevard to Singin' In The Rain, from The Artist to Argo, from The Player to The Purple Rose of Cairo, films about films hit Hollywood in its sweet spot. Just look at those six films - 34 Oscar nominations for 11 wins.
The Grand Dame of these self-congratulatory/self-flagellating odes to Tinseltown is All About Eve - the story of ageing Broadway star Margo Channing (Davis) and Eve (Baxter), the young diehard fan who slowly and unsuspectingly ingratiates herself into Margo's life. While technically about the theatre, its commentary on stardom, actresses, writers, directors, ageism, the entertainment industry's views on women, audience appetites, and the power of critics is equally applicable to film. In fact, Hollywood looms over the movie as a near-mythical realm promising endless fortune or critical ruin, depending on how you look at it - it's a place to be derided and looked down upon but secretly worshipped and respected.
Oddly, All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard were released in the same year, went head-to-head at the Academy Awards. All About Eve attracted an equalled-but-never-bettered 14 nominations, including four nominations for four of its actresses across two categories (still a record). When combined with Sunset Boulevard, the two films won nine Oscars (six for Eve, three for Boulevard) - almost every eligible award they could win between them. It's all the more interesting when you consider how negatively both films portrayed Hollywood - 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die called All About Eve "one of the sharpest and darkest films ever made about show business" while describing Sunset Boulevard as "acidic".
Writer William Bayer explains it thusly: "Sunset Boulevard tells us that old forgotten stars are bundles of megalomaniacal nerves; All About Eve tells us how they get that way".
Both films remain as relevant today as they were in 1950. But where Sunset Boulevard took a noir-ish knife to the movie-land mythos, All About Eve abounds with gossipy theatricality as it peeks behind the curtain. The latter film's dialogue is deliberately stagey, its players overly melodramatic, and it both relishes and reviles its world. As The Wordsworth Book of Classic Movies puts it, All About Eve is "a venomous story of backbiting showbusiness folk, with dialogue etched in acid and cynicism expressed in the most piquant and quotable manners".
Mankiewicz's script is the best he ever wrote, and it switches between two modes - pontificating and biting - with ease. It's the kind of dialogue actors kill for. There are big speeches and snide asides, grandiose diatribes and sizzling zingers. It has it all, and while its unnatural approach takes a bit of getting used to for modern audiences, it's worth it for the gold.
The best of this gold is delivered by Bette Davis. A performance worthy of her Oscar nom (Gloria Swanson deserved to win for Sunset Boulevard but didn't), it showcased her famed ability to play "bitches", but also her skill at drawing sympathy. Margo is an actress with a reputation (not a million miles away from Davis' own image), but we care about her. We empathise with her concerns, which largely relate to the ageism of her industry, and how at the age of 40 she is cognisant of being "on the way out". She's also an amazing drunk. It's a wonderfully written role, beautifully realised.
The bulk of Margo's million-dollar quips are aimed in the vicinity of the increasingly creepy Eve, who Baxter makes impossibly intense yet still a very real person. There are depths to Baxter's performance that really shine through on repeated viewings. Listen to the way Eve speaks when she lays out her life story in the dressing room of her idol Margo Channing (Davis) - it's a monologue, written, rehearsed and delivered in a classic theatre style. The way Baxter unfolds Eve in time with the perfectly paced script is magnificent, and her ability to evolve from starstruck ingenue to diabolical beast to trapped victim in the space of two hours is dynamite.
While Eve is the nominal antagonist, the film's true villain in the end is Sanders' hissable Addison DeWitt (a role that I can't help but imagine Orson Welles playing). DeWitt, a theatre critic, is obviously a swipe at the profession that would make Charlie Kaufmann proud. A vile, manipulative viper, he's also the only person bothering to find out the truth, or who can see what's really going on.
In a list entirely comprised of male directors and dominated by male-led films, All About Eve stands out. It's forward-thinking view of career women (though written by a man) is both of-its -time and smartly feminist, and gives the best roles to its female cast. "All the wittiest lines in the film belong to the women," says film critic Molly Haskell. "Mankiewicz is so fascinated by women and sympathetic towards them: he gives them importance, he gives them idiosyncrasy, he gives them their personalities.”
Case in point is Marilyn Monroe's five-minute cameo. It's the tiniest of roles, made significantly less-tiny by Monroe's sparkle and timing, but blown up to memorable proportions when combined with Mankiewicz's diamond-grade script. Davis, Baxter, Holm, Ritter and Monroe - you'd be hard-pressed to find a better film with five better female performances and five better-written roles. Ironically, it was the men who won the Oscars (except for famed fashion designer Edith Head) - all four nominated actresses (the afore-mentioned minus Monroe) missed out.
"I'm well-nigh besotted by (women)," said Mankiewicz. "Writing about men is so limited. Men react as they're taught to react. Women are, by comparison, as if assembled by the wind."
All About Eve certainly demonstrates this idea. Amid a list of movies by men about men, it stands out like the proverbial rose among the thorns. But regardless of this, its script, performances and ideas remain fascinating, intriguing and enjoyable 70 years on.
No comments:
Post a Comment