Movie Review - All About Eve

All About Eve (1950)

Starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, and Gary Merrill

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Look no further than All About Eve to find proof that just because a film wins Best Picture doesn't mean it will stand the test of time.  Nominated for a whopping fourteen awards and winning six, the flick is badly in need of an editor as it feels every minute of its lengthy 138-minute runtime thanks mostly to an off-putting and uncomfortably stagey performance from Anne Baxter as the title character, a small-town girl who travels to New York City with hopes to befriend stage star Margo Channing (Bette Davis).  Why Eve's rather obsessive behavior upon their initial meeting is rewarded by friendship from Margo is one of the bigger flaws of the film and makes the entire premise begin on rather shaky ground.  Nevertheless, it soon becomes obvious that Eve has an unnatural fascination with Margo, but those around the big star like her friend Karen (Celeste Holm), Karen's playwright husband Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe), and Margo's movie star boyfriend Bill (Gary Merrill) think Margo is simply jealous of the youth of Eve.  However, it is soon discovered that Margo's inclinations about Eve are correct as Eve begins to take over everything in Margo's life.

There are some good performances here including a nice, biting turn from Bette Davis as star Margo Channing.  And, at times, the script is a nice look at the backstabbing world of the theater, delving into some biting behind the scenes chicanery at times.  However, the character of Eve is so goshdarn horrendous that I never gave a damn about anything in this movie.  I'm not sure if it's the character itself or just the absolutely horrible performance given by Anne Baxter (who was nominated for an Academy Award for this).  Her line deliveries are undeniably forced, and even from the very first moment we glimpse Eve, Baxter fails to create any semblance of a believable character.  This is a huge problem in a movie called All About Eve since Eve is the character whom all other plot points revolve around.

This "classic" had been in my Netflix queue a long time and I had always looked forward to watching it.  However, despite a script that at least provided some interesting ideas, All About Eve simply doesn't work.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-