Bette Davis learns "All About Eve" in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s classic film

 All About Eve (1950) is an American drama written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, and Celeste Holm. Other cast members include Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlow, Thelma Ritter, and Marilyn Monroe.

Broadway star Margo Channing (Davis) has recently turned 40 and is wondering how long she can sustain her career. Then one evening after Margo’s latest performance, her best friend Karen Richards (Holm) brings a seemingly helpless superfan named Eve Harrington (Baxter). Eve followed Margo’s career when she was on tour in San Francisco and now in New York City.

Karen introduces Eve to Margo’s friends, including Karen’s husband playwright Lloyd Richards (Marlowe). Slowly, Eve becomes part of Margo’s inner circle making Margo’s personal assistant Birdie (Ritter) suspicious. So cunning is Eve, that she replaces Birdie as Margo’s new assistant.

Other complications arise from Margo’s relationship with the director of her current play Bill Sampson (Merrill), 8 years her junior. Margo is insecure in their relationship due to their age difference and unbeknownst to her, Eve attempts to replace Margo in Bill’s affections.

How does this all end? Will Margo overcome her insecurities about her age, career, and relationship with Bill or will Eve stand in her way?

Anne Baxter and Bette Davis square off

Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1929 – 1972) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz won Academy Awards for directing and writing A Letter to Three Wives (1949), and All About Eve (1950). He is the only director to win back-to-back Academy Awards for writing and directing. Other films directed by Mankiewicz include Dragonwyck (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Julius Caesar (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), and Guys and Dolls (1955). He directed the 1963 crisis-plagued production of Cleopatra which negatively affected his career as a director.

Bette Davis (1908 – 1989) was an American actress whose stage and screen career spanned more than 50 years. Davis came to Hollywood in 1930 and within four years of her arrival, she was one of its biggest stars winning her first Best Actress Academy Award for her role in Dangerous (1935). Her starring role in Jezebel (1938) won her a second Best Actress Oscar. Davis would go on to star in many popular films during the 1940s including Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), and Now, Voyager (1942). In 1950 she starred as Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), a role she is probably most identified with today. Other popular films include The Old Maid (1939), All This and Heaven Too (1940), Mr. Skeffington (1944), and The Corn is Green (1945).

Anne Baxter (1923 – 1985) won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Sophie MacDonald in The Razor’s Edge (1946). She was signed to a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox in 1940. In 1948, Baxter starred in four movies, with Yellow Sky being her most prominent role to date. She went on to have a prolific career in film, television, and theater. She is probably best known for her Oscar-nominated performance as Eve Harrington in All About Eve. Frank Lloyd Wright was Baxter’s grandfather.

George Sanders (1906 – 1972) was a British film and stage actor who also had a fine singing voice. Hollywood was looking for a villain to star opposite a young Tyrone Power in Lloyd’s of London (1936) and Sanders more than fit the bill. His performance in that film would forever stamp him as a sophisticated bad guy. Before his acting career, he worked in the textile industry, which must have helped him with his role in The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry. In the 1960s, Sanders played Mr. Freeze in the Batman (1966) television series.

Celeste Holm (1917 – 2012) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She won a Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and was nominated for her roles in Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950). She originated the role of Ado Annie in the landmark stage musical Oklahoma! (1943).

 

All About Eve trivia

• Claudette Colbert was the director’s first choice to play Margo Channing. In fact, Colbert was contracted to play the part but had to drop out due to a back injury she suffered during the filming of Three Came Home (1950).
• Bette Davis and Gary Merrill fell in love during filming and were married a few weeks after the production wrapped.
• The film holds the record for the most female Oscar-nominated performances: Anne Baxter and Bette Davis for Best Actress and Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter for Best Supporting Actress.
• Davis said this film saved her career after a series of unsuccessful films. She said Mankiewicz “…resurrected me from the dead.”
• Producer Darryl F. Zanuck changed the working title Best Performance to All About Eve after reading one of Addison DeWitt’s lines in the opening narration of the script.
• Zanuck wanted Jeanne Crain to play Eve, but she became pregnant and Anne Baxter was offered the role.

 

Click HERE to watch the film at the Internet Archive.

Click HERE to join the online discussion on September 9, 2024, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Once you RSVP, you will receive an invitation and a link to join the discussion on Zoom.

 

Discussion questions

1. All About Eve’s reputation over the years has achieved legendary status. Do you think its reputation as a great film is well deserved?
2. The film is filled with wonderful performances by a great cast. Did one performance stand out to you or were all of equal weight in your estimation?
3. What do you think will become of Eve as she goes forward with her career? Will she always be under the thumb of Addison?
4. Do you think that Margo and Bill will have a successful marriage? Why or why not?
5. How well does the film hold up in the 21st century?
6. Was there anything in the film that surprised you?
7. If this movie were remade, who would you cast as Margo and Eve?

 

 

Happy Birthday, Jeanne Crain

I’m a huge fan of Jeanne Crain. She was one of the most popular movie stars from the mid-to-late 1940s to the early 1950s.

A favorite of studio chief Daryl F. Zanuck at 20^th Century-Fox, Crain was cast as the girl next door in the mold of Janet Gaynor, several decades earlier. Like many actresses before her, Crain got tired of playing teenagers when she was in her twenties, married with children.

It was the children that may have ended her career at Fox earlier than Crain may have wanted. Crain had seven children during her tenure at Fox. Since she was often pregnant, roles that Zanuck had planned for her had to be shelved or given to other actresses. The most famous role that Crain lost out to pregnancy was that of Eve Harrington in All About Eve.

Jeanne Crain with Daryl F. Zanuck and his children, Richard and Darrylin

To learn more about Crain and her career, click on the links below for other blog posts from the Classic Movie Man.

Jeanne Crain: More Than Just a Pretty Face 

Jeanne Crain's great year

Classic Films in Context: Pinky 1949

10 Things You May Not Know About Jeanne Crain

Classic Films in Context: Apartment for Peggy

Claudette Colbert is a prisoner of war in “Three Came Home”

Three Came Home (1950) is an American film about prisoners of war under the Japanese in North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak during World War II. The film was directed by Jean Negulesco and starring Claudette Colbert, Patric Knowles, and Sessue Hayakawa. The film is based on the memoir Three Came Came Home, by Agnes Newton Keith. Keith was a journalist and novelist. 

Agnes and Harry Keith were living a comfortable life in North Borneo with their young son. Harry Keith was English and Conservator of Forests and Director of Agriculture for the government. The Japanese invaded Sandakan on January 19, 1942. Wives and children were separated from their husbands and fathers and held captive in prison camps near each other. When Mrs. Keith is singled out by Colonel Suga, the head of the camp, she has no idea what may be in store for herself and her family.

Sessue Hayakawa and Claudette Colbert

Jean Negulesco (1900 - 1993) was a Romanian-American movie director during the classical Hollywood period. He is most famous for directing Jane Wyman to her Oscar-winning performance in Johnny Belinda (1948), How to Marry a Millionare (1953), Titanic (1953), and Three Coins in the Fountain (1954). He was one of the first directors to film in the then-new widescreen process called Cinemascope. In fact, he was called “the first real master” of the process. Other films he directed include Road House (1948), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Boy on a Dolphin (1957), and The Best of Everything (1959).

Claudette Colbert (1903 -1996) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Ellie Andrews in Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934). For her role in that film, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was nominated two other times in that category. Colbert got her start in the theater where she played a variety of ingenue roles. In 1928, she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures where she quickly made a succession of movies. Her breakout role came in 1932 in The Sign of the Cross (1932) starring Fredric March and Charles Laughton. In 1934, she made three films that were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: Imitation of Life, Cleopatra, and the eventual winner, It Happened One Night. No one had been able to match that record. Other popular films include I Met Him in Paris (1937), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Midnight (1939), The Palm Beach Story (1942), Since You Went Away (1944), and The Egg and I (1947).

Patric Knowles (1911 -1995) was an English actor and got his start in British cinema during the early days of talking pictures. On arriving in America, he was signed by Warner Bros. At that studio, he had roles in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, It's Love I'm After (1937), and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) again with Flynn and de Havilland. During the 1940s, Knowles worked at RKO, Universal, Paramount Studios. Knowles continued working in film and television until the early 1970s.

Sessue Hayakawa (1886 -1973) was a Japanese actor and matinee idol during the silent era in Hollywood. Hayakawa was so popular that he was earning $3500 a week in 1919. He also had his own production company from 1918 - 1920. Hayakawa made films in Europe, America, and Japan during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. He later became a character actor with roles in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).

Sessue Hayakawa during his days as a silent film idol 

Three Came Home trivia:

• Claudette Colbert was signed to play Margo Channing in All About Eve, but during a scene in Three Came Home, she injured her back and had to drop out, allowing Bette Davis to play the iconic character.
• Colbert considered this one of her best film roles and performances.
• The Fox film crew went to Borneo and filmed for four weeks to get background footage.
• Agnes Newton Keith’s memoir was a best-seller in 1947 when it was first published.
• Olivia de Havilland was originally announced for the role of Keith.
• Agnes Newton Keith has a small cameo in the film; she’s the very tall woman carrying two suitcases off of the dock at Kuching, Sarawak.

To watch the movie on YouTube, click on the link below.

To join the discussion on April 20, 2021, at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. To RSVP click here. Once you RSVP, you’ll get an invitation and Zoom link to join the discussion.

Why watch this film?

• The film is based on a true story of a family’s survival as prisoners of war.
• It features a great performance by Colbert who wore no makeup and lost weight so her characterization would be more realistic.
• Colbert hated to have her face filmed from the right side; for this film, she put her vanity aside.
• Released only five years after the end of the war, the film gives a fairly balanced portrayal of the Japanese commander Colonel Suga.

Discussion questions:

1. What did you think of the movie overall? Did it seem realistic?
2. Was Colbert’s performance believable?
3. What did you think of the supporting cast? Did anyone stand out?
4. Did anything surprise you?
5. How did this film compare to Stalag 17?

Chicago Film Club field trip: “All About Eve” March March 5 at ShowPlace ICON at Roosevelt Road

Where: ShowPlace ICON, 150 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago, IL 60605
When: March 5, 2017
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Hosted by Stephen Reginald
Run Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

From the moment she glimpses her idol on Broadway, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) strives to upstage Margo Channing (Bette Davis). After cunningly stealing Margo’s role, Eve disrupts the lives of anyone close to the actress in this timeless cinematic masterpiece. With its witty dialogue and knockout performances, the film earned a record 14 Oscar® nominations* and also features Marilyn Monroe in an early supporting role.

*1950: Best Picture (won), Supporting Actor (George Sanders, won), Costume Design (B&W, won), Directing (won), Sound Recording (won), Screenplay (won), Actress (Anne Baxter), Actress (Bette Davis), Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm), Supporting Actress (Thelma Ritter), Art Direction (B&W), Cinematography (B&W), Film Editing, Music (Score).

You can buy your ticket in advance by clicking here or purchase at your local theatre.

First-timers, look for me holding a Meetup sign below.

10 Things You May Not Know About Thelma Ritter

Thelma Ritter is one of the most beloved character actresses of all time (at least according to me anyway). She appeared in many classic films starting with Miracle on 34th Street. Test your knowledge of this iconic actress by checking out the 10 facts below.

1. Family friend, director George Seaton, cast her in her first movie Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and her last, What’s So Bad About Feeling Good (1968).

2. She was uncredited in her first three movies: Miracle on 34th Street, Call Northside 777 (1948), and A Letter to Three Wives (1949).

3. Ritter was nominated for six Oscars—all for Best Supporting Actress.

4. Her first Oscar nomination was for her role as Birdie in All About Eve (1950).

5. Her name was above the title for the first time in The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951).

6. She played a character based on Molly Brown in Titanic (1953).

Thelma Ritter ruins James Stewart’s appetite in Rear Window.

7. She was not nominated for her role as Stella in Rear Window (1954).

8. Co-hosted the Oscar ceremony with Bob Hope in 1954.

9. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress (Musical) in New Girl in Town (1957) in a tie with costar Gwen Verdon.

10. She died nine days before her 67th birthday in 1969.

Jeanne Crain's great year

During the mid-1940s, you couldn't be more famous or beloved than Jeanne Crain. Under exclusive contract to Twentieth Century Fox since 1943, Crain was a top box office star until the early 1950s. During the war years, Crain received more fan mail than anyone on the Fox lot except Betty Grable.

Forties trifecta

In the mid-40s, Crain had hits with State Fair (1945), Centennial Summer, and Margie (both 1946). But in 1949 she really hit her stride with three critical and financial successes: A Letter to Three Wives, The Fan, and Pinky. Not only that, but she worked with three uniquely talented directors in each of those films. For A Letter to Three Wives, Crain worked with Joseph Mankiewicz; for The Fan, Crain worked with Otto Preminger; and for Pinky, Crain worked with the legendary Elia Kazan.

Julia who?

During Crain's peak in popularity, her face was on the covers of dozens of magazines. In Crain's obituary, film historian and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) host, Robert Osborne, called her the "Julia Roberts of the day."

Pregnant pauses

Crain was so popular and such a favorite of Fox studio chief, Darryl Zanuck that he slated many of the plum female roles for her. One problem for Crain was that she was seemingly always pregnant, which frustrated Zanuck to no end and resulted in Crain losing out on some great parts.

One role that Crain may have missed, because she was pregnant, was Eve Harrington in Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950). Mankiewicz didn't think Crain could be tough enough in the role, but it would have been a brilliant move to cast Crain against type. (I mean no disrespect to Anne Baxter, who was superb.) But imagine audiences discovering that sweet Jeanne Crain was a cold, calculating villain. From Zanuck's perspective, casting Crain in that role made sense because she would have been a huge box-office draw. Pinky was the biggest-grossing film of 1949, and Bette Davis's star power was greatly diminished. With all Eve's acclaim, it wasn't as big a box office success as another Crain film released that year, Cheaper By The Dozen. With Crain in the picture, it might have been a bigger box office hit.

With Pinky, the first film from a major studio to deal with racism, Crain was nominated for her only Best Actress Academy Award. She lost out to the eventual winner, Olivia deHaviland (The Heiress), but it was an acknowledgment that Crain was more than just a pretty face.

And a pretty face she was, indeed.

Classic film of the week: "A Letter to Three Wives" (1949)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949) is based on a novel by John Klempner. His novel was entitled A Letter to Five Wives. Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz thought the novel was too long and would be difficult to transfer to the screen. So, he shortened it to four wives and then shortened it again to three. Mankiewicz adapted the screenplay with author and screenwriter Vera Caspary (Laura).

The plot revolves around three wives who, just before going on a boat ride and picnic with some disadvantaged children, receive a letter from a society friend named Addie Ross. In the letter, Addie says she’s run off with one of their husbands. While the women spend the afternoon volunteering, each looks back on her marriage and wonders if hers is the husband who ran off with Addie.

Is it Deborah (Jeanne Crain) Bishop’s husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn)? Deborah, a poor farm girl, met her husband in the Navy during World War II. Somewhat insecure and naïve, she thinks Brad is attracted to Addie because she is beautiful and sophisticated. Is it Rita (Ann Sothern) Phipps’s husband George (Kirk Douglas)? Rita has a career writing radio soap operas, the quality of which, her schoolteacher-husband disapproves. She wonders if her job, which brings in some much-needed cash, is somehow intimidating to George and ruining their marriage. Is it Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) Hollingsway’s husband Porter (Paul Douglas)? Lora Mae is a girl literally from the wrong side of the tracks who tries her best to marry up by marrying her boss, in part, to help provide for her widowed mother (the wonderful Connie Gilchrist) and younger sister Babe (Barbara Lawrence).

Like Mankiewicz’s All About Eve a year later, A Letter to Three Wives has witty dialogue delivered by a cast of pros. Crain, Sothern, and Darnell are all wonderful as the three wives, with Darnell a standout. As Lora Mae, Darnell has a tough exterior, but in many ways is more vulnerable than either Crain or Sothern. Her battles with Paul Douglas are wonderfully scripted; they make a very believable married couple struggling to keep their relationship together. Also believable are character actresses Gilchrist and Thelma Ritter as Sadie Dugan, Rita and George’s maid.

For Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949 was an extraordinary year. Not only did he win the Academy Award for Best Director, but he also won for Best Writing as well. Writing and directing was something Mankiewicz had always wanted to do and A Letter to Three Wives showcases Mankiewicz at the height of his creativity.


Classic Movie Man Trivia: Who was set to play the fourth wife before her part was cut?
Answer: Ann Baxter