...Aaaaand I'm finally back to writing about an actual film again, after thirteen months of hiatus.

1950's All About Eve, starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, entered my consciousness after watching a compilation of the American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Quotes" series, which features Bette's immortal line "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." I realized then that I'd never actually seen a Bette Davis film, despite her legendary career and volcanic presence onscreen. Combining all that with the film's status as being one of the earliest for one up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe, and that I knew the plot dealt with backstage drama (of particular interest to me, a now-and-then performer), All About Eve made quite a case for viewing.

When I did finally have time to watch the thing, I did so while cooking dinner one night. Alfred Newman's score soared over the opening credits as I banged around the kitchen with pots and pans, and Addison DeWitt began his opening monologue just as I started to season whatever was sautéing on the stove. In stolen glances during my cooking process I caught a glimpse of Bette (with a delicious, sardonic lift of an eyebrow) turning down a mixer for her whiskey at the film's fictional equivalent of the Tony Awards, and I knew I had to start the whole thing over— I couldn't miss a frame of this.

All About Eve takes place over the course of eight-ish months— though to paraphrase playwright’s wife Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) "in the theater, a lifetime is a season and a season a lifetime." Most of the film is therefore told in flashback, looking back from the awards night at which Eve (THE Eve, Eve Harrington, The Golden Girl, The Girl Next Door, etc., played truly diabolically by Anne Baxter) has become the youngest person to ever win the yearly award for Best Performance on the New York stage.

It's a good framing device, and one that I actually forgot about by the end of the film when we all returned to that auditorium for Eve to accept said award. In between those bookends, a tale unfolds of laughter, tears, gumption, insecurity, love, adultery, and basically everything else you'd expect to find in a story about the theatre.

Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is introduced as a long-running star of the stage at her peak, which, for actresses in 1950, means that she has just turned 40 and her career is on the one-way track into decline. She's in a long-term fling with Bill Sampson, a hotshot director eight years her junior, who loves her deeply. They're friends with playwright Lloyd Richards and his wife Karen. On the fringes of this little clique is theatrical critic and all-around sociopath Addison DeWitt, whose cynicism puts him at odds with the foursome.

Enter Eve. Eve is brought backstage to meet her idol, Margo, one night after being spotted at the stage door again by Karen. After some coaxing by the gang, Eve reveals that she's a war widow, an amateur actress, and all alone in the world. It's in this dressing-room dialogue that we first encounter a staple of this film: the mirror shot. In this world where identity is defined by exterior means— casting, criticism, applause— the mirror shot allows Mankiewicz to provide those means subtly, without alerting an audience to his designs just yet.

In many ways, All About Eve is all about identity— building it, maintaining it, and losing it. Margo's primary conflict in this film is her relationship with the idea of Eve: Eve, a potential usurper to her identity— professionally, romantically, and psychologically. Eve has the talent and traits to potentially take everything she holds dear. Eve’s struggle with identity is that she has to craft hers entirely from scratch— she has nothing, and nothing to lose. Eve moves from anonymity, through a Machiavellian attempt at supplanting Margo, and to her final form as a living embodiment of an award show trophy— golden, glittering, and ultimately hollow.

For a film about literal drama, however, the actual confrontations between the two main characters are quite tame. Eve’s strategy seems to be one of non-aggression: anytime Margo attacks Eve, Eve holds her characteristic soft-spoken innocence, letting Margo’s paranoic outbursts alienate everyone around her. Eve plays on Margo’s deepest fears: being alone, forgotten, unloved— allowing Margo to destroy herself from within. And boy, does Margo do it with flair.

To say that Bette Davis succeeds in this film is a gross understatement. She sizzles with barely-contained passion during her most powerful sequences; her caprice and charisma flash out from those legendary eyes. Her loss of the Oscar for this role is a true injustice and ironically happened in some measure because of Anne Baxter’s insistence that her portrayal of “Eve” be considered for Best Actress instead of Supporting Actress, splitting the All About Eve votes, and giving Judy Holliday the prize. (I’m 100% editorializing here, it could have easily gone to Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard.)

Bette’s performance is amplified by a delightful script, her one-liners landing with devastating precision and without fanfare— the audience just comes to accept that she and the rest of these characters can volley dialogue back and forth between them like the best players at Wimbledon.

Margo (to Eve): “Don’t get up. And please stop acting as if I were the Queen Mother.”

Bill (to Margo): “Outside of a beehive, Margo, your behavior would hardly be considered either queenly or motherly.

Margo (to Bill): “You’re in a beehive, pal— didn’t you know? We’re all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night— (to Eve) aren’t we, honey?”

The way Margo overcomes her primary obstacle— namely, her self-doubt about her age and status— is that she recognizes the dissonance between her on- and offstage lives. She breaks out of the cycle of theatre, ending whatever power the threat of Eve’s ascent might have held over her. She comes to know that the rigmarole of the stage is a fantasy, an escapist world where people gather to leave real life behind, and where those same people presume to define her and her worth. By giving it up and marrying Bill, she self-actualizes, and reengages with her humanity and her reality.

Margo: “I've finally got a life to live! I don't have to play parts I'm too old for— just because I've got nothing to do with my nights."

This is in marked contrast to Eve, who can’t leave the theatre even though she might clearly want to. Addison has outmaneuvered her and blackmailed her into a relationship, and so even the thrill of achieving the heights of stardom leave her weary and unsatisfied, and lonely.

All About Eve’s conclusion brings us right down to the final scene— a hall of mirrors, a labyrinth of frames around a bright new ingenue, an Eve-to-be— conveying to us that Eve herself is not so much an individual, but a vessel for another theatrical role. “Eves” pop up regularly, and they’re always ready to prey on opportunity and on those who can't or won’t see past pleasant façades— that is to say, people who prefer theatre to reality.

I’ve designed this poster to reflect the duality of these two women. Their identities blend together and yet stand markedly different. The color palette moves from the bright gold of award season to the shadowy brown of the backstage world. I designed a midcentury typeface for the title; modeled after the marquees and industrial posters of years gone by.