Movie: All About Eve Essay, Research Paper

Movie: All About Eve

English 30

Spring “97″

In the film All About Eve, (directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and released in

1950), Eve Harrison (Anne Baxter) was a young woman with evil running through

her veins. She wanted to be “somebody” and chose to get there through Margo

Channing (Betty Davis) who was a famous stage star. Eve would do whatever it

took to get where she wanted to be, including hurt the ones that trusted her and

took her in as a “lost lamb”. Though Eve was already evil within and throughout,

the people around her made it even easier to acomplish her goals.

Margo was one of the most popular stage actresses and put herself high on a

pedastel, and looked at someone like Eve as being below her, a poor soul that

could be of no threat to anyone, especially Margo Channing. Eve played the meek

and shy girl that idolized Margo. She claimed to attend all the preformaces of

the play that week due to the fact that she adored Margo and she would have

nowhere else to go anyway. Doing this allowed Eve to get her foot in the door.

If it wasn’t for Margo’s conceitedness, Eve would have had to work a little bit

harder to get this. Margo took her into her home.

Margo’s secretary-aid, Birdie (Thelma Ritter), was the first to sense

something was strange about Eve, but her position made it not her place to speak

her mind. Eve knew this and also knew it would be easy to take control of her

position because of this. It would only seem to Margo that she enjoyed doing

things for her.

Eve charmed Bill Simpson (Gary Merrill), director and Margo’s lover, with her

feminine qualities that Margo lacked. Eve just seemed to be overly interested

in everything Bill had to say about the theater. She used to keep him admiring

her and at the same time, drove Margo crazy with jealousy to tear their

relationship apart. Little did she realize, Bill had no romantic feelings

towards Eve at all, so she blew her cover when she made a pass at him.

Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), Margo’s best friend, was the one that found

and introduced Eve to Margo. She was the type of person that would anything for

anyone, sort of niave and trusted Eve from day one. Karen was amazed by Eve’s

devotion towards her idol. After getting into Margo’s home, she used Karen’s

kindness to subtly suggest that she would love to replace Margo’s pregnant

understudy. Once again she got her way.

After Eve’s first reading, she completely won over Karen’s husband, Lloyd

Richards (Hugh Marlowe), a playwright. Eve gave him his dream: to have an

actress play the part of a character with the same age, eliminating the

“comprimises” that he normally had to work through with Margo (Margo was much

older). Eve was fabulous (from studying Margo “like a blueprint”) . Margo

threw a jealousy fit because everyone raved so about her preformance.Now this

brought Lloyd to the conclusion that Margo was well overdue for a boot.

Karen’s kindness comes back again when Karen sets it up so Margo would miss

her show so Eve can have her big moment?thinking that she was doing good for all

concerned. After the play was when things began to fall apart. She received

great reviews for the preformance and set up an interview with Addison De Witt

(George Sanders), well known for degrating people in his column. She knew she

could say whatever she wanted and blame it on De Witt, claiming he changed her

words around, and noone would have trouble believing it.

She pleaded for Lloyd’s forgiveness, stating that she could not face Margo or

the others. During this vindication, she once again worked her magic giving him

the idea that she would be perfect for his new play, which was created for Margo.

She got him to believe, like everyone else, that he came up with the idea

instead of her. Already tired of Margo’s pushyness and temper tantrums, aside

from the fact that Eve was the perfect age, it wasn’t tough for Lloyd to think

she was best. But, he told her, Karen had to agree.

By this time most have figured out her evil ways so she knew she had to get

outright nasty to get this part. She blackmailed Karen announcing that De Witt

said she best agree to her getting the part or De Witt wouldlet everyone know

that she was responsible for Margo missing the show so Eve could replace her.

De Witt knew nothing of this but it was easy for Karen to believe due to his

past history.

In the end Eve got everything right back at her. De Witt checked out her

past and discovered all of her dirty little secrets and said now she belonged to

him or he would spill his guts.

In overall, Eve was able to play out her evil ways because the people around

her allowed her to. Each of their personalities made it possible for her to

suceed in getting what she wanted. Margo’s conceitedness and insecurities,

along with Karen being too trusting. Addison De Witt’s popular past history and

Lloyd’s blindness due to the thought of his plays being acted out exactly how he

wrote them also made it easier. Had Birdie been higher in her position, Eve

wouldn’t have gotten as far as she did, not with them anyway.