Alfred Hitchcock famously observed that movies should be more than just picture postcards of people talking. Sometimes, though, dialogue is all that's needed. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's immaculately scripted All About Eve is a case in point. There are no special effects (unless one considers Marilyn Monroe's wiggle or a scene in which a car breaks down). What the movie offers instead is some of the most coruscating one-liners ever committed to celluloid. The top-name cast certainly know how to put Mankiewicz's words across. Anne Baxter is all doe-eyed charm as Eve, the... ruthless aspiring actress who passes herself off as a little girl lost. George Sanders (eminent character actor and the voice of Shere Khan the tiger in The Jungle Book) shows his customary mellowness of sneer as Addison De Witt, theatre critic and professional cynic ("a venomous foot louse" as he's characterised) who helps push Eve up the greasy pole toward success, if not happiness. Best of all is Bette Davis, a soured but still resplendent stage diva, who takes Eve under her wing. ("I'll admit I've seen better days but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail--like a salted peanut", she tells her lover.) The plotting and double-dealing on the screen, described in Sam Staggs' All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made, were matched by what went on behind the scenes. Davis heartily loathed fellow actress Celeste Holm who--ironically enough--plays her best friend. She fell in love with another co-star, the handsome, good-looking Gary Merrill, whom she later married. Backstage dramas are often self-indulgent and stagy affairs, but this one dazzles. --Geoffrey Macnab [show more]
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Joseph L Mankiewicz writes and directs this classic award-winning drama starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter Eve Harrington (Baxter) is famous actress Margo Channing (Davis)&39;s biggest fan When by chance she gets to meet the great lady she quickly ingratiates herself into her life Before long however she has become a bitter rival stealing Margo&39;s Broadway role and causing turmoil in her personal life George Sanders Celeste Holm Gary Merrill and Thelma Ritter co-star with Marilyn Monroe making an early film appearance Both Davis and Baxter received Oscar nominations for their roles with the film winning six awards including Best Picture Director Screenplay and Supporting Actor (Sanders)
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