All about Eve 1950
Hailed as the film with the best screenplay ever written, it is indeed sheer pleasure to watch all the stars rattle off their lines with great finesse. For their effort, this flick starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter as the main characters was feted with 14 Oscar nominations, a commendable never repeated until 1997 with Titanic. Many of their lines are evergreen and are oft-repeated, like "put on your seat belt, it is going to be a bumpy night!"
Almost all the lines are melody to the ears, some incisive laced with loads of sarcasm, others with comical double meaning word play. Even Marilyn Monroe who had a minor role delivered her witty lines very well.
Eve was an ardent fan of Margo Channing (Bette Davis) who was seen at the theatre for all of Margo's plays. She was brought in back-stage to be introduced to Margo by play-writer's wife, Karen. The seemingly humble and soft spoken is easily liked by everyone and starts working as Margo's efficient helper.
Margo is actually very insecure as she just turned 40 and her fiancee, Bill Samson, a director is 8 years her junior. She is afraid that she may stay unmarried and her success would dwindle pretty soon.
Eve slowly shows her true colours as she cunningly gets herself appointed as her uunderstudy, gets Margo to be absent from a performance, act Margo's part at a performance, get all the city reporters to write a rave review of her performance and even try to seduce Bill (Margo's fiancee, but he refused) all with the intention to becoming a great actress. In the process, Eve creates animosity between Margo, her fiancee, Karen and her husband. She even manages to snatch the new role planned for Margo.
After all this is over and Eve wins the accolade, we find another novice entering Eve's dressing room to duplicate all of Eve's antics. Well, that is showbiz for you, everybody is there with a knife just to stab you when show your back to them!
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_About_Eve
Almost all the lines are melody to the ears, some incisive laced with loads of sarcasm, others with comical double meaning word play. Even Marilyn Monroe who had a minor role delivered her witty lines very well.
The interesting thing about the movie is the blurring of real life and reel life in the lives of the actors and the role that they were supposed to act. Well Bette Davis, who was a fading star then and got the role after the original actress hurt her back, was just being her in the film as a primadonna pushing her weight and ego around just because she can.
It starts with Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) being honoured as a new refreshing stage actor. The story of her ascent to fame is later told in flashback.Eve was an ardent fan of Margo Channing (Bette Davis) who was seen at the theatre for all of Margo's plays. She was brought in back-stage to be introduced to Margo by play-writer's wife, Karen. The seemingly humble and soft spoken is easily liked by everyone and starts working as Margo's efficient helper.
 |
| Margo Channing |
| Monroe(centre) |
After all this is over and Eve wins the accolade, we find another novice entering Eve's dressing room to duplicate all of Eve's antics. Well, that is showbiz for you, everybody is there with a knife just to stab you when show your back to them!
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/All_About_Eve
Comments
Post a Comment