From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.
08 Mar All About Eve (1950)
Fabrications
I admit, I find the story of the Mankiewcz brothers to be one of the most interesting in all filmdom. Part of the allure is their experimentation in narrative perspectives and the nature of fabrication.
Here, the fabrication is extra sweetly dimensional. We have a movie about movies, actresses portraying actresses with resonances among all these four elements.
And we have the character who fabricates a character (Eve), who incidentally is as much a written object as the characters of the movie are. And of course she believes otherwise just as Betty’s character does (and, we presume Betty herself did).
The writing is pure genius, aided presumably by psychotropics as was the later “Cleopatra,” which was begun with similar aspirations. I found the acting superficial, but again that’s part of the fun I guess.
Posted in 2004
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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