A Little Bit About Eve.

I feel like I should start by declaring, emphatically, that I liked All About Eve (1950). I liked it. Again, I liked it, I liked it. I really did like it. I need to put that out there first because, for the most part, I’m now going to rip into it. This is not to say that the movie was a misstep in the Monday Night line-up, but it’s true that it’ll be the last title I need to re-watch anytime soon. But I did like it. I liked a great many things about it. I’ll get to those things a little later on.

In the weeks and months to come I’ll be grappling with the definition of "classic", because "classic" doesn’t always mean "spectacular" and "timeless". Sometimes even the most classic of classics hasn’t aged smoothly and doesn’t sit well with modern day expectations. Take Dyne and Casablanca. I’m also told that Easy Rider just won’t be the same experience in the 21st Century as it was in the late sixties (we’ll see.) But when visiting the Monday night movies I’m trying not to bring too many expectations to the table. I understand that some oldies are gonna be showing up. I’m cool with the fact that sometimes they’re gonna be wildly out of whack with what I’m used to seeing. Case in point: Stagecoach (1939), which was akin to leafing through an old sepia-tinted photo-album, yet was astonishingly alive and vibrant. It had me at the edge of my seat from about five minutes in.

All About Eve is another story.

All About Eve is an actor’s movie. And it’s not just because the plot surrounds a young actress usurping the stage royalty of Bette Davis’ diva character, Margo Channing. It’s an actor’s movie in the way that only movies from the late-40’s and early-50’s can be. The actors live for speechifying, for running wild with monologues that, while sharply written, seem to fly right off the typewriter. Every actor in this movie has at least one or two – a moment built for the Oscar highlight reel where they run the range of emotions like a soprano massaging an aria. They’re good speeches. Don’t misunderstand. In some cases, they’re wonderful speeches. But they are also remarkably theatrical and arch, casting an artificiality to the movie that’s difficult to bust through. Bottom line is that there was never any doubt that I was watching an old movie. And there was never any question that I was watching famous actors move through their paces like old pros. [I recognize that this argument can be posted with a lot of old movies, but so far this is the first Monday Night movie that hasn’t absorbed me entirely.]

The plot for All About Eve was also a little shaky, insofar that it never once surprised me. This might be a decade-sensitive thing. Fifty-four years ago, post-war audiences may have been surprised and delighted when Eve turned out to be a scoundrel (the most courteous and congenial villainous in film history, I might add.) But to my eyes the plot was so telegraphed that I could tell where we were heading 30 minutes before the turn. Sort of like riding in a car in a parade. This made the experience less than engaging. And worse, this was the first movie of the Monday night line-ups where I began to look at the clock and count the number of hours of sleep I was going to get before work.

But like I’ve said again and again. I liked the movie. Now the good.

This is the first time I’ve seen Bette Davis in action [outside of Disney’s Watcher In The Woods, which hardly counts.] She’s a marvel. And yet I can’t put my finger on what it is. She’s certainly not attractive like a lot of popular actresses from the 30’s and 40’s (though I suppose there'll always be some people who find her attractive.) She’s not young and vital (at least in this movie) like many of the old icons. If anything, she probably smells a little like cigarettes and booze. So what is it? Of course, there are those eyes – those eyes that most certainly warrant a 1980’s pop song. Perhaps she’s the female answer to Peter Lorre, with sad sack eyes that command attention and do so much of her acting. [This got me to thinking that there aren’t many of these types of character actors left in the world. I’m talking about actors where the eyes do everything – William H. Macy’s the only one that comes to mind. Let me know if you can think of any others.]

Bette Davis also smokes remarkably well. She can blow smoke like she is in control of air around her. Which is good because she smokes A LOT. In truth, this entire movie is one big showcase of masterful, theatrical smoking. The air is dense with it and I almost had to check the DVD case again to be sure that I hadn’t accidentally slipped into a noir film. At any rate, I look forward to Bette Davis popping up again in the Monday Night line-up.

And speaking of repeat offenders, Marilyn Monroe also passed through All About Eve for all of about two seconds. Sharing the screen with Bette Davis, it’s quite a dichotomy between Hollywood icons – one young and desirable and the other, street-wise and weathered. And yet still, Bette Davis came out on top.

Special note: All About Eve featured the coolest cucumber I’ve seen in a movie in some time. The role of Addison DeWitt was played by George Sanders, the same laid-back dude who gave voice to Shere Khan in Disney’s The Jungle Book. I recognized his suave voice right away and it thrilled me to no end to see the character (who was still and will always be Shere Khan as far as I’m convinced) dating Marilyn Monroe and smoking crazy-long (and one might even say "dainty") cigarettes. On a further tangent, a quick search of IMDB confirms that Sanders ultimately died by suicide, leaving a note that read, "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough." He also recorded an album called "Songs for the Lovely Ladies." Like I said: one cool cucumber.