The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 13
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Release Date: Jan 1, 1957 Wide
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 4,900
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Movie Info
When Alistair Cooke shows up to introduce Three Faces of Eve, we know that the fact-based story will bear more than a little fidelity to truth. Joanne Woodward won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Eve, a young Georgia housewife suffering from multiple personalities. Eve's husband (David Wayne), confused by his wife's aberrant behavior when assuming her two "other selves," seeks out help from a psychiatrist (Lee J. Cobb). Carefully probing Eve's subconscious via hypnosis, the doctor finds
Jan 1, 1957 Wide
Oct 5, 2004
Fox
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Cast
-
Joanne Woodward
Eve White -
David Wayne
Ralph White -
Lee J Cobb
Dr. Luther -
Edwin Jerome
Dr. Day -
Alena Murray
Secretary -
Nancy Kulp
Mrs. Black -
Douglas Spencer
Mr. Black -
Terry Ann Ross
Bonnie -
Ken Scott
Earl -
Mimi Gibson
Eve (younger) -
Alistair Cooke
Narrator -
Rush Williams
Hospital Orderly -
Vince Edwards
Soldier
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All Critics (17) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (1) | DVD (7)
...turns a psychological condition into a parlor trick.
An early, too simplistic Hollywood melodrama about split personality, well acted by Joanne Woodward in an Oscar-winning performance.
The power of the film as a whole has been lessened with time...
watch the film for Woodward. She never reached heights like this before or since
A introdução feita por Cooke indica a insegurança dos produtores com relação ao roteiro - e, se não fosse pela performance de Woodward, o filme seria um grande embaraço.
It once seemed daring, now it seems simplistic.
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I think Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress best summarizes my opinion of this film: "It once seemed daring[;] now it seems simplistic." At the time, 1957, this film probably portrayed a little-known condition with little-known Freudian treatment, so that the popular audience had to be assured of the subject's verisimilitude, hence the framing narrator vouching for the film's accuracy to a point that the narrator "doth protest too much methinks." But now, Eve's condition is portrayed more like Thing from another World with magical and threatening music toning in every time one of Eve's personalities appears. It becomes heavy-handed, and for an audience that has seen Raising Cain, among all the other films about multiple personalities, it's trite.
That said, Joanne Woodward is fantastic, fully creating each personality and delivering a performance that of the "they don't make 'em like that any more" variety. I also liked the film's feminist overtones. Ralph is an appropriate villain, and making him the villain, the film impugns patriarchal culture.
The story's construction is also faulty in parts. There's no need for Woodward's song, and who the hell is Earl? He suddenly appears like the deus ex machina he is, and we have no reason to think of him as a worthy goal.
Overall, The Three Faces of Eve is a film to see because it's a classic, but unlike most good classics, it has been imitated and refined to the point that it lost its originality and spark.