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In Theaters | New DVD | Find Reviews | Thumbs Up | |
 ALL ABOUT EVE
ALL ABOUT BITCHINESS! Reviewed by Bruce Cantwell "To those of you who do not attend the theater, listen to unsponsored radio programs, or know anything of the world in which you live, it is perhaps necessary to introduce myself," says humble theater critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) in the midst of the scathing expository monologue that opens Joseph L. Manckiewicz's brilliant Oscar-winning screenplay about Broadway backstabbing. The titular Eve is Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) who claws her way from star struck stage door groupie to tyrannical Broadway star during the course of a single theater season. Her story is a sophisticated twist on 42ND STREET and A STAR IS BORN that has gone on to serve as the material for two musicals, APPLAUSE and RUTHLESS! She begins her climb by telling her idols, actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) about her unfulfilled life as a secretary in a Wisconsin brewery, her ill-fated engagement to a soldier who (naturally) was killed during the war, and how witnessing a performance by Margo Channing gave meaning to her life and brought her to New York. "What a story. Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end," says Margo's assistant Birdy, the only one in the room who isn't suckered. Manckiewicz delights in bursting his overblown characters' bubbles at every opportunity. When Eve asks Margo's director/lover Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) why he's going to Hollywood, he responds, "The theatuh, the theatuh - what book of rules says the theater exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London, Paris, or Vienna? Listen, junior. And learn. Want to know what the theater is? A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man band - all theater. Wherever there's magic and make-believe and an audience - there's theater. Donald Duck, Ibsen, and the Lone Ranger. Sarah Bernhardt and Poodles Hanneford, Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable, Rex the Wild Horse, Eleanora Duse - they're all theater. You don't understand them, you don't like them all - why should you? The theater's for everybody - you included, but not exclusively - so don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your theater, but it's theater for somebody, somewhere..." "I just asked a simple question," counters Eve. When Margo's jealousy has alienated Bill's affections, she spends a weekend alone with her friends Lloyd and Karen (Celeste Holm), to whom she confesses, "Infants behave the way I do, you know. They carry on and misbehave--they'd get drunk if they knew how--when they can't have what they want: when they feel unwanted or insecure or unloved." The concept of drunken babies doesn't crop up every day! As for the male bitch of the group, I can't think of an actor in the history of talking motion pictures who is better qualified to deliver such lines than the always cynical old poof George Sanders. He won an Oscar from "that film society" that he derides in the above mentioned monologue. If you haven't checked in with Eve in a while or if somehow your paths have never crossed, "fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night." Check out the Tim Dirks piece for more analysis and some great, vintage posters.
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