Not all masterpieces grow richer with age as both viewers and the films they revisit grow older, nor are they expected to. But nothing ages quite like sophistication, and there are few Hollywood productions as sophisticated as All About Eve. Nor are there many films whose “quiet qualities,” as Margo Channing (Bette Davis) chides about the obsequious Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), wear better with time as the formal “fire and music” of so many other paragons of early-stage cinephilia inevitably lose their freshness, leaving only memories of excitement behind. Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the height of his powers, All About Eve is truly a film for every era, balanced in such a manner that it miraculously gives receptive audiences exactly what they need when they need it. And I never realized to what extent the truth of that bears out until my very most recent viewing, as I arrived upon the scene and speech that always gave me reservations, a gear-shifting moment that for me had until recently always ground the entire production to a deflating halt: Margo’s contrite “book full of clippings” speech.
For its first 90 minutes or so, All About Eve runs two marathons’ worth of sparkling, bitchy repartee, with Margo thrusting her bon-mot baton many miles in front of the pack as she fends off the requirements of Broadway superstardom, the encroachment of middle age, and the obsequious attentions lavished upon her very being by the seemingly meek stage-door lamprey Eve. Then, due to the machinations of her best friend, Karen Richards (Celeste Holm, striking a pitch-perfect balance between poised and patronizing), Margo winds up stranded in the countryside in a car without gas, very clearly about to miss her first performance in many years, unaware that Karen has arranged things so that Eve, the interloper no one’s yet aware is about to upend all their lives, can step on as her new understudy, and tantrum-prone Margo can learn a lesson in humility. Surprisingly, Margo takes her impending truancy in stride, and sentimentally launches into a long reverie about domesticity:
“The things you drop on your way up the ladder…you forget you’ll need them again when you get back to being a woman.…In the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around and bed, and there he is. Without that, you’re not a woman. You’re something with a French provincial office, or a book full of clippings, but you’re not a woman.”
Say what? Most contemporary audiences coming to All About Eve in the last few decades, or indeed ever since Davis was crowned the queen mother of camp’s golden age, are invariably lured in by the promise of all-time diva fireworks, served with cosmopolitan flair on a cocktail napkin. Closeted teenage me was certainly no exception, lapping up every last one of Davis’s full-throated assaults on whatever poor sap happened to be standing in front of her at the tail end of a violent mood swing. But even from the very first time I watched the film, I was aware that Mankiewicz’s energies never seemed directed toward behavioral antics as ends unto themselves. In Slant’s previous review of All About Eve, a regrettably skeptical Joseph Jon Lanthier noted that the film’s most quotable call-to-arms (“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”) is followed by “inebriated self-pity instead of the anticipated bitch-out,” as though the prime function of the scene, the character, and the film is to supply an endless stream of incisive, proto-Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? tongue-lashings.
Margo’s third act-ushering about-face while seated in that stalled car alongside Karen changes the entire chemistry of the film. Suffice it to say, her unambiguous embrace of domesticity would seem on its surface to be a byproduct of the times, and certainly a tough pill to swallow for equality-minded, doggedly individualistic modern Americans. But All About Eve—talky, stagy All About Eve—isn’t a surface film. Davis delivers the sentiment that, without a man, you’re not a woman with a look in her eyes that belies her real-life, on-set romance with co-star Gary Merrill, who plays Margo’s director and paramour, Bill Sampson, in the film, and who would become Davis’s last and longest-lasting husband thereafter.
Audiences might be surprised by Margo’s sudden and unequivocal semi-retirement from the spotlight, but Davis’s expression clearly telegraphs that she herself isn’t; it’s what she knew she always wanted. I, not being nearly as wise as Margo, never knew that’s also what I wanted as I, like Margo, spent the first 40 years of my life pursuing drama (in my case, only vicariously through films like this one) while avoiding—make that actively self-sabotaging myself out of—healthy relationships. To revisit All About Eve today, with an engagement ring my teenage self never once dreamed I’d get having been placed on my finger not more than 48 hours earlier, is to recognize how masterpieces aren’t aged in wood (to borrow the title of Margo’s starring vehicle on Broadway) so much as they continue to live alongside their viewers’ own lives.
Image/Sound
Those aiming to add Criterion’s new edition to their collection on the hope that it represents a significant upgrade from the most-recent transfer before it needn’t push this to the top of their shopping lists. Because 20th Century Fox’s 2011 release looks virtually identical to Criterion’s new 4K restoration, which could very well be the mark of an original print well-preserved. Criterion’s presentation offers rich monochromatic range, and vibrantly active grain. The display is superb enough, in fact, to drive home just how underrated the film is, formally speaking. You catch every glint of Margo’s bottomless martini glass, every fastidious strand of Eve’s wrapped-too-tight coif, every furrow in dyspeptic producer Max Fabian’s brow. Cue this disc up—or, you know, the previous edition—and banish all misconceptions of All About Eve as a “filmed play.” Criterion’s disc does away with a whole boatload of alternate-language soundtracks featured on the 20th Century Fox release, but no one’s going to morosely request the party pianist play “Liebestraum” over that omission.
Extras
As with the image and sound bona fides, Criterion’s release largely recycles the most prominent bonus features from previous editions, making this particular Criterion edition vexingly superfluous in a way that very few other of their releases are. Even worse, the cardboard digipak packaging is a flimsy mess, with sticky rubber fasteners holding the discs in until they’re inevitably torn off—fasteners which also unfortunately grab onto the cover of the included booklet (my copy was torn at the staples as a result). Which is all to say that those picking it up just because it’s Criterion and they have a display fetish will already have had their main incentive taken away due to the shoddy package design.
Among the features new to this All About Eve set are the two-hour 1983 documentary All About Mankiewicz, which centers around film historian Michel Ciment’s interviews with the writer-director. It’s probably the meatiest extra in the entire set, and well worth your time. Of the two commentary tracks, I personally got more out of All About All About Eve author Sam Staggs’s slightly dishy track, despite its occasional lapses into silence, but odds are good that the film’s fans will eat up Celeste Holm’s observations on the other track, and might wish she didn’t have to share space with Christopher Mankiewicz and biographer Ken Geist.
As with Criterion’s Now, Voyager release, there’s vintage Dick Cavett footage, not only another episode with Bette Davis, but also a wonderful separate interview with Gary Merrill, from back in an era where a national talk show could feature a Gary Merrill and not be hopelessly anachronistic. Amid the rest of the well-stocked set’s reruns are a few other newly produced items, foremost among them a 20-minute chat with costume historian Larry McQueen, who unpacks the film’s immortal outfits, including the legendary party dress that Davis, at the last minute, pulled off her shoulders to ensure production wouldn’t be delayed.
Overall
All About Eve may be an essential film, and Criterion may be an essential cinephile label, but somewhere along the way, this release turned out to be a mere carbon copy.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
