Black & White World

All About Eve (1950)

Sitting through those Saint movies made me hungry to see a little more of George Sanders, only this time as Addison DeWitt, the bastard I love to hate.  His (justifiably) Oscar-winning performance here is an absolute delight ("I am Addison DeWitt.  I am nobody’s fool, lease of all yours.").  He’s the absolute best thing in a movie that’s pretty damn good on its own.

I wrote a long post in my blog a few years back about Chicks Like Eve, so I have already covered how deftly the script paints a picture of Eve.  Prior to seeing All About Eve for the first time, I had only seen Bette Davis in period pieces and sort of “grand dame” roles.  While I could see that she was a capable actress and had great star power, there was never anything I found personally relatable about the characters she played.  Until I saw All About Eve.  Margot Channing, though rich and famous and bigger than life, has a side to her that is not just vulnerable, but that is very much like people I know, like me even.  It was the first time I could watch Bette Davis in a role and say, “Girl, I know just how you feel.”

All About Eve also contains one of the greatest movie slaps of all time, which Addison rightly (finally!) administers to Eve.  1950 was a good year for slaps, in fact:  Gloria Swanson cracks William Holden a good one in Sunset Blvd., and clearly catches him right in the ear—bet he was feeling that for a couple of hours.

1. I hadn’t though of it until you said it, but it may be true that, as good as Bette Davis and Thelma Ritter are in EVE, George Sanders may actually steal the show.  It’s really his confrontation scene with Anne Baxter that is the climax of the film.  What a wonderful and underrated actor Sanders was.

   Posted by Michael Ritchie  on  06/10  at  05:14 PM

2. And let us not forget Celeste Holm either, who I think is quite good in this.  The other men are sort of duds, though—Gary Merrill and Hugh Marlowe.  They’re kind of boring anyway, but on the same screen as Sanders they barely even register.

   Posted by  on  06/10  at  06:15 PM
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