During 2008, film societies in the UK and around the world have been celebrating Bette Davis’s centenary. They’ve screened films from Jezebel to Now Voyager, from Dark Victory to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. The Wimbledon Film Club has gone to huge effort to bring you Bette Davis signature performance in All About Eve, one of the great films of the twentieth century. In this film classic about ambition and betrayal, an aspiring actress (Eve/Baxter) insinuates herself into the circle of friends of a successful but ageing actress (Margo Channing/Davis).
This is simply Davis best film. She pares down the mannerisms, Mankiewicz doesn’t let her chew the scenery and she gives a knowing and sensitive performance, characterised by her inimitable enunciation of lines. The superlative cast, including Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles, the sparkling screenplay written by director Mankiewicz, the fact that story has personal resonance for Davies, and that she fell in love with her leading man (Gary Merrill) on set and later married him – together these elements combine to make All About Eve near-perfect.
It won six Oscars at a time when awards weren’t thrown around like Smarties. Davis deserved Best Actress Oscar, but the vote was split by the co-nomination of Anne Baxter, which led to Judy Holliday winning the award for Born Yesterday. The Cannes Film Festival and the New York Critics Circle later did the right thing giving Davis the Best Actress accolade.
Margo Channing was her greatest role it seems to show her defeated by the wiles of a younger actress, but in fact marks a victory the triumph of personality and will over the superficial power of beauty. She never played a more autobiographical role. Robert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.
Joseph L Mankiewicz’s wonderfully literate 1950 classic drama of the theatrical life, All About Eve, is to be savoured for its language, performances, psychological insights and proof that all the worlds a stage. Philip French, The Guardian.
All About Eve possesses one of the best screenplays ever to grace the silver screen. It also has one of the best performances by an actress in the history of Hollywood features. James Berardinelli , Top All Time 100.
