I have to say that this movie was surprisingly good. I genuinely liked all of the characters, although each of them had their moments where they just got under my skin... Let's see if I can sum this one up for you. I forgot to do that for Rebel Without a Cause... I'll go back and edit later.
The movie starts out with Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), a famous play critic, narrating over an awards ceremony. He introduces all of our main characters and talks about the theatre world and how there are two types of people in it and so on. We then see Eve (Anne Baxter) receive a prestigious award at said awards ceremony. Then we jump back to where it all began. We see Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) the wife of a famous playwright, walking into a theatre where Miss Margo Channing (Bette Davis) has starred in a play. Karen runs into Eve, who at this point as not had her break in show business, and Eve tells Karen how she just adores Margo and all of her performances. Being Margo's best friend Karen introduces Eve to Margo. Eve tells Margo a very sad story about how her husband died in the war and how now she lives alone and the only thing she does in her life is come see Margo's show every night. With that, Margo hires Eve on as her assistant. Everything seems nice at first, but then things start to take a turn for the sinister. It seems like Eve, who is young with natural talent, is popping up everywhere, and leaving Margo in the dust. Margo becomes very jealous of this, but because Eve is so sweet, everyone things Margo has just gone a bit crazy. So time goes on and Eve gets more and more fame and Margo loses all of her friends and even her boyfriend. One night, after Eve's performance as Margo's understudy, Addison DeWitt catches Eve coming on to Margo's ex-boyfriend, Bill Simpson (Gary Merrill). Bill turns Eve down, but that night, Addison begins to peel away at Eve's sweet facade to the lies underneath, and the two form an alliance. When Margo reads in Addison's column some of the terrible things that Eve has said about her, Margo's friends and Bill come running back to her side. Eve tries to gain back all of their trust, but its too late. Eve lands a starring role in a huge play, but no one is there to share it with her. Addison, Eve's only companion, finally uncovers the whole truth for the audience in one final scene. It turns out that Eve made everything up, from her name, to where she lived and grew up, to where she worked, and even made a up a fake husband who died in the war. She was just scheming to work her way into the limelight. So, at the end, when the story goes back to her receiving her award, she has crumbled to nothing. She thanks Karen and Margo and Bill and many others, but all of them just stare back at her with frowns. When Eve arrives at her apartment later that evening, she finds a young girl waiting there, claiming to be the president of one of the Eve Harrington fan clubs, and the cycle begins again.
Honestly, the thing that shocked me the most about this movie was how well the characters seemed to transition into their different character traits. Eve had to at first be this sweet, innocent angel who never did anything wrong. But midway through the movie, after she has said all of those awful things about Margo that got published in the newspaper, and she goes about trying to blackmail Karen for conspiring against Margo, we see a different, darker side of her. Her humble smile is replaced by a piercing stare that sent chills down my spine. She was literally a different person. And then, by the end, when the audience finds out that she was just fabricating stories and conning everyone, she really starts to seem a bit crazy. She is grasping at straws, and everyone knows it, and I definitely believed it.
Margo also goes through a transformation. She at first is this funny woman with a tough exterior but a good heart, who then starts to spiral down into jealousy and madness. Everyone, including the audience thinks that she's crazy. As the movie goes on, she made me tired listening to her go on and on about Eve and pushing everyone in her life away. But then, once she makes herself vulnerable, and breaks down in Bill's arms over the horrible newspaper article, we see a softer side of her. She and Bill get engaged soon after, and she really loosens up. By the end, she is the most likable character in the movie. That might partially be because we all (and by that I mean me and the rest of her friends and Bill) feel a little guilty for thinking that she was a nut and not believing her when she said that Eve was out to get her. But still, its a transformation nonetheless. Something about her relaxes, and allows the audience to relax.
I have to say, that the movie really had me going. I read the short synopsis that's off to the side of the movie title on Netflix, just to see what the movie was about, and it told me that Eve was a con artist, so it was spoiled for me from the start. However, midway through the movie, when Margo was on her downward spiral and eve was going up, I started to doubt myself. That's how much I believed Eve. I thought that maybe I had read the synopsis wrong or that maybe it was a different character, but no, Eve's character comes right back around, and its done beautifully.
I thought it was cute that Marilyn Monroe made a cameo appearance. She is only in the movie for a few minutes as a struggling actress who bats her eyelashes trying to get parts. It was cute.
When I saw how long this movie was (granted, its only two hours and ten minutes, but when you think about how most movies made today are about an hour and a half at most, anything over two hours can get a bit long) I was a little skeptical. However, I noticed that everything in this movie was necessary. Whenever I thought we were getting to a point where the movie should be winding down, there were still thirty minutes of movie to go. They packed story into those two hours. Everything was important and flowed well together. Today, writers are told to cut out the excess parts of their story, but back then they could add as much as they wanted in there. After the two hour mark, we are starting with a totally new plot point and what seems like a totally new story with the same characters. Sure, sometimes it gets boring, but I can't predict where the movie is going, which is nice, because in today's movies people can pretty much predict what is going to happen by just watching the previews.
I loved all of the little creepy touches that were added in about Eve. Like how she was creeping in on Bill, planning him a birthday party. And how she sneakily was able to get Karen to agree to land Eve the part as Eve's understudy. All of these things could be explained away as innocent, but behind the innocence is something dark and almost chilling.
I can't think of many things that I didn't like about this movie. Again, I really hope that maybe I'll get to one of these classic movies that I don't like and that I can just write a terrible review for, but for right now, I can't. All of the characters in this were great. Their clothing was great. Everything. Even in black and white it was beautiful, and I'd even argue that it was the black and white that made it beautiful.
If I had to give this a ranking? I'd say... Maybe like... 3/5 of an Academy Award. Maybe not best picture, but certainly a nomination with people rooting for it. I really need to think of a scale... If anyone has any ideas of a clever scale, leave me a comment and let me know.
I think I might watch Annie Hall next. That or maybe Duck Soup? A Clockwork Orange? To Kill a Mockingbird? ET? Whatever strikes me (and is on instant Netflix).
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