All About Eve (1950)
Average Rating: 9.1/10
Reviews Counted: 55
Fresh: 55 | Rotten: 0
Smart, sophisticated, and devastatingly funny, All About Eve is a Hollywood classic that only improves with age.
Average Rating: 8.3/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 0
Smart, sophisticated, and devastatingly funny, All About Eve is a Hollywood classic that only improves with age.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 41,745
Movie Info
Based on the story The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, All About Eve is an elegantly bitchy backstage story revolving around aspiring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Tattered and forlorn, Eve shows up in the dressing room of Broadway mega-star Margo Channing (Bette Davis), weaving a melancholy life story to Margo and her friends. Taking pity on the girl, Margo takes Eve as her personal assistant. Before long, it becomes apparent that naïve Eve is a Machiavellian conniver who cold-bloodedly uses
Jan 1, 1950 Wide
Oct 5, 1999
20th Century Fox
Watch It Now
Cast
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Bette Davis
Margo Channing -
Anne Baxter
Eve Harrington -
George Sanders
Addison De Witt -
Celeste Holm
Karen Richards -
Gary Merrill
Bill Sampson -
Hugh Marlowe
Lloyd Richards -
Thelma Ritter
Birdie Coonan -
Marilyn Monroe
Miss Claudia Caswell -
Gregory Ratoff
Max Fabian -
Barbara Bates
Phoebe -
Walter Hampden
Aged Actor (Speaker ... -
Randy Stuart
Girl -
Craig Hill
Leading Man -
Barbara White
Autograph Seeker -
William Pullen
Clerk -
Claude Stroud
Pianist -
Eugene Borden
Frenchman -
Helen Mowery
Reporter -
Steven Geray
Captain of Waiters -
Bess Flowers
Well-Wisher -
Ed Fisher
Stage Manager
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All Critics (55) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (55) | Rotten (0) | DVD (24)
What makes the picture seem so good (what makes it eminently worth seeing) is the satirical touches in its detail and the performance of Bette Davis.
It crackles with smart, smarting dialogue.
Top CriticThe Zanuck production investiture is plush in every department.
[Features] more quotable dialogue in one movie than most screenwriters manage in a lifetime.
The hoped-for tone of Restoration comedy never quite materializes, perhaps because Mankiewicz's cynicism is only skin-deep, but the film's tinny brilliance still pleases.
Mankiewicz's flair for dialog is so perfected that all three actresses shoot fireworks whenever they open their mouths.
Bette Davis is fabulous in this role.
Screenwriting students, you have your Bible. Movie lovers, you have a film that is impervious to the rigors of time, not to mention an inspiration for every prime-time soap opera.
Mankiewicz's inside knowledge of show business and its particular personality types gives the film an authenticity and allows for its famously devastating acid wit. [Blu-ray]
In our celebrity-obsessed culture, it's possible that All About Eve is more important than ever. Scratch that. How about it's more entertaining than ever?
All About Eve looks into Broadway's artichoke heart to ring an early death knell for classic Hollywood.
Along with films such as Luis Buñuel's "Los Olvidados" and Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," Joseph Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" made 1950 one of the most seminal years in cinema history.
Classic movie about an ambitious woman.
Sanders...was ideally cast in this role: you can feel in Addison's every word the world-weariness of the actor who would eventually commit suicide at age 65...
Joseph L Mankiewicz's wonderfully literate 1950 classic drama of the theatrical life, All About Eve, is back in the cinema, to be savoured for its language, performances, psychological insights and proof that all the world's a stage.
Put simply, one of the greatest movies ever made.
The peerless tale of two rival drama queens, playing as the central attraction in the BFI Southbank's Joseph L Mankiewicz season, and rightly so.
Here is a real Christmas treat: a restored version of Joseph L Mankiewicz's jet-black 1950 comedy about Margo Channing, elegant leading lady of the theatre, superbly played by Bette Davis.
A total joy.
One of Hollywood's finest backstage dramas. If nothing else Davis should have been rewarded for services to the tobacco industry.
Apart from the monochrome photography, all that dates the film is the chain-smoking and the fact that these are theatre folk rather than movie stars (frequent in-jokes about the low art of Hollywood pepper the script).
Impeccable.
There is so much to admire in All About Eve, even for those too young to be drenched in nostalgia for the spectacle of Bette Davis unleashing her sharp tongue.
Audience Reviews for All About Eve
Super Reviewer
The screenplay is one of the best of all time, perfect in every way. It has sort of a unique and modern flair to it, making All About Eve memorable and timeless. The performances were wonderful, also, especially Betty Davis. All About Eve garnered a total of 5 Oscar nominations for the cast; after viewing the film it's clear why. Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, and Hugh Marlowe all give great performances. This was also my first Marilyn Monroe film; she has a minor role.
Nominated for an astounding 14 Academy Awards and winner of 6 including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, All About Eve is a classic piece of cinema that is a must-see. I cannot recommend this film enough.
Super Reviewer
Movies Like All About Eve
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- Lloyd Richards: It's about time the piano realized it has not written the concerto!
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- Margo Channing: Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.
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- Margo Channing: Hold on, it's going to be a bumpy night.
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- Margo Channing: A milkshake?
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- Margo Channing: Don't get up. And please stop acting as if I were the queen mother.
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- Margo Channing: I distinctly remember Addison crossing you off my guest list. What are you doing here?
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Foreign Titles
- Alles über Eva (DE)
- Eve (FR)
