All About Eve

All About Eve (1950) is a pitch-perfect drama. Driven by its snappy script and perfect ensemble cast, its depiction of backstage scheming and lust for fame is eerily credible and completely compelling.

Aging Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis) takes the star-struck ingenue Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) under her wing. Eve's obsessive love of Margo and excessive humility soon raise suspicion, which is vindicated when Eve becomes Margo's understudy and wows her audience in a replacement performance. Soon she's conniving to replace Margo as the star of playwright Lloyd's (Hugh Marlowe) new play; going after Margo's beau, director Bill Simpson (Gary Merrill); and blackmailing Lloyd's wife Karen (Celeste Holm) into helping her. Her conniving catches up to her, however, when she crosses paths with acerbic critic Addison de Witt (George Sanders), who makes her an offer she can't refuse.

With the possible exception of the same year's Sunset Blvd., All About Eve is the best film about show business that Hollywood has ever produced. The trite Star is Born formula is replaced with an acidic view of backstage back-stabbing. Eve's climb to the top is all too credible: nice, impossibly innocent girls like her don't really exist. Her genius is recognizing the insecurities and rampaging egos of those around her, and knowing how to play them. Her perfidy is slowly revealed: Margo's dresser Birdie (Thelma Ritter) is instantly suspicious; Margo, self-conscious about her age, fears being replaced; the others catch on when directly confronted by Eve's dark side. Only Addison, himself no slouch in the scheming department, stands above her plotting, with the power to make or break Eve's career. Eve is paid back with a wonderfully karmic ending, suggesting that her time at the top is limited.

Writer-director Joseph Mankiewicz excells in both capacities. His script is one of the best ever, mixing acerbic wit with great story-telling and perfect characters. Every major character is well-rounded and sharply observed; no one actor is allowed to steal the show, each working off one another brilliantly.

Bette Davis does an excellent job, playing Margo with the right mixture of ego, exasperation and insecurity. Anne Baxter is chilling: Eve seems too good to be true, and Baxter does a fine job keeping her cards to her chest, gradually revealing the schemer within. George Sanders (Rebecca) gives a career-best performance: brilliantly snide, crass and cynical, yet also witty and observant, he embodies everything people expect from critics. In any other film, Sanders would steal the show. Gary Merill and Hugh Marlowe do well in thankless parts. Marilyn Monroe shines in an early bit part, and Thelma Ritter gets in some sharp jabs.

All About Eve is a near-pefect movie. Full of great performances and excellent dialogue, it's a compelling drama from beginning to end.