Best Picture Winner: 1950

All About Eve (1950)

I first saw this film last February and it became an instant favorite, mainly due to the sharp-as-a-razor-blade dialogue. With Bette Davis, George Sanders, and Thelma Ritter hurling out zingers left and right, All About Eve is one of cinema’s most audibly captivating movies. But it’s also one of the most vicious looks at what some people will do to get their break in show business.

When Broadway sensation Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is first introduced to Eve Manning (Anne Baxter), she takes pity on this poor, lonely woman, whose only pleasure in life seems to come from watching Margo on the stage. Margo offers Eve not only a job in her employ, but also a place to stay at Margo’s swank New York apartment. But before long Eve’s plan becomes clear: she wants to be on Broadway too, and she will do anything to get there.

Eve lies, backstabs, blackmails and double-crosses throughout the entire film, and we know she succeeds because the film opens with her about to receive the coveted Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement. The fact is Eve turns out to be a terrific actress, and just needed a break to prove it. But her methods are horrific, turning friend against friend and threatening marriages. She is not a sympathetic character by any stretch of the imagination, and there is pleasure to be derived when Eve receives her comeuppance from George Sanders’ acidic theater critic Addison DeWitt as he delivers a tongue-lashing as fine as there’s ever been in the movies.

One of the joys of the film is that is populated by intelligent people. Bette Davis’ Margo Channing knows she is growing older and, now in her 40s, can no longer play 25 year-olds. Her wrestling with this issue is what makes her vulnerable to Eve, who picks and exploits Margo exactly because of the age issue. The characters in this film don’t make their mistakes because they’re stupid. Rather, they are taken advantage of by a shrewd personality who caters to egos and tells people what they want to hear. And perhaps the script’s most ingenious stroke is to have the loathed Addison DeWitt actually be the one who takes the winds out of Eve’s sails. She may go on to have a successful career in the theater and perhaps even Hollywood, but her alliance with DeWitt will forever leave a bittersweet taste in her mouth. The film’s final scene, where a fan shows up in Eve’s room after the awards ceremony, suggests none of this is lost on Eve.

All About Eve plays as well today as it did in 1950 because we non-theater folk can imagine this kind of backstabbing going on today. In 1950 this story may have been looked upon as cynical, a sort of extreme situation. Today, All About Eve is viewed as standard operating procedure.