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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Salesrank: 50057
Released: October 5, 1999 |
| Our Price: $29.99 |
| Used Price: $6.85 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Showered with Oscars, this wonderfully bitchy (and witty) comedy written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz concerns an aging theater star (Bette Davis) whose life is being supplanted by a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing ingenue (Anne Baxter) whom she helped. This is a film for a viewer to take in like a box of chocolates, packed with scene-for-scene delights that make the entire story even better than it really is. The film also gives deviously talented actors such as George Sanders and Thelma Ritter a chance to speak dazzling lines; Davis bites into her role and never lets go. A classic from Mankiewicz, a legendary screenwriter and the brilliant director of A Letter to Three Wives, The Barefoot Contessa, and Sleuth. --Tom Keogh
All About Eve Reviews:
An American Classic 
2009-12-01 - Anyone who has not seen this movie is missing one of Hollywood's greatest movies ever produced. It was nominated for 11 Oscars, and deserved every one of them. Bette Davis has never been better as Margo Channing, the shimmering stage actress who's candle is just beginning to dim, as she reaches the age of 40. The supporting cast are all perfectly "cast".
George Sanders as the slimy theater critic Addison DeWitt.
Gary Merrill as the director of Margo's plays; and also her boyfriend.
Hugh Marlowe as the playwright for most of Margo's greatest performances.
Celeste Holm as Marlowe's wife and Margo's best friend.
Thelma Ritter as Margo's housemaid and personal assistant
Marilyn Monroe as a wannabe actress
And Ann Blyth as the inibitable Eve Harrington.
Nothing beats this script for wit, sarcasm and dry humor. I own a copy but still watch it every time its on television.
I could watch it once a week, it's that good.
Classic Movie
2009-11-24 - Considered by some to be one of the most literate movies ever made. It certainly contains some of the best acting ever done on film. Everyone does a wonderful job - especially Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, & George Sanders. Marilyn Monroe has a small part & is lovely in it. If you want to see a great vintage classic film with wonderful acting pyrotechnics get this one. The bonus material always gives added incite. A must have.
Can't be beat
2009-09-25 - Simply can't be beat for the intelligent and witty script, the superb acting and the flawless direction. That's why it consistently appears on everyone's list of top movies of all times. Bette Davis' good luck in getting the lead role when Claudette Colbert become ill was our win as well.
A Tour de Force On All Counts
2009-09-13 - "All About Eve" is a fascinating look behind the scenes of what it can take(and sometimes what it can do) to people who live inside show business. While it's about Broadway on the surface, it's also a film about Hollywood and what it takes to be the best in the business (And what happens when youth fades and it's time to move over). The cast is super and the dialogue! Of course,people don't really talk like that(if they ever did)but wouldn't it be fun if we could all be so clever? Davis shines a Margo Channing,the 40ish diva who's about to be stabbed in the back by the poor innocent(read wolf in sheep's clothing)she takes in and trusts. This is a must have DVD,not only because the transfer makes it sparkle,but because...well...it's a damn good movie!
Sublime Bette
2009-08-10 - A lot has been said about ths movie, and it would be tedious to recite again how great this movie is. I rather think in fact that this movie is under-rated in today's world where good writing and acting simply do not exist. All the cast are wonderful, in particularly, magnificently, Bette Davis gives the performance not only of her career but of anyone's career. In my opinion it's the best example of sublime acting by an Actress in the 20th Century in film or theatre. Bette inhabits the role, and brings to it bitter irony, wit, sophistication and sublime bite.
I do not mean to ignore the other actors in this wonderful movie, as they are all great to a man, or woman as the case may be. In particular, George Sanders gave the performance of his life. He, like Davis, was made for this role. His Addison DeWitt is a man of supreme intelligence, world weary, urbane to the last degree, insouciant, and just plain mad. Exactly like the actor himself.
Thelma Ritter as always delivers a performance guaranteed to steal every scene she is in... Celeste Holme is perfect in her role as the long suffering friend trying to cope with a life in the world of theatre and with Margo Channing in particular.
Much has been made of some of Bette's more outrageous lines, such as "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a Bumpy flight)(or is it night?) And indeed Ms Davis delivers those line with style and panache and exactly as Margo Channing would. But it's not those lines alone that make this performance so frightenly perfect. For me the highlight of the movie is rather the scene in the stranded car heading back to the train station... Bette Davis (Margo) and Celese Holme (Karen) sit alone stranded in the car in the country as they wait for Lloyd to return with help. Bette Davis turns on the radio and the director brilliantly uses the music from the radio to exquisitely underscore a brief and inutterably brilliant monologue by Davis.
She begins by apologizing for her behavior to a shocked and guilty Karen and then proceeds to explain Margo in tour de force performance by Ms Davis as she ends in words so poignant and self revelatory.... "in the end, you're not a woman...you're something with a box full of clippings and an office of French Provincial furniture but you're not a woman... the end". I always need a few boxes of kleenex for this scene alone. Not just because of the words, which are razor sharp, crafted jewels....but because no other actress could have made them so pertinent, real and truly beautiful.
The direction, writing, and score are all beyond belief. But if this movie were only three minutes long and contained that monologue by Bette Davis I would still adore this movie.
