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.
All About Eve (1950)
Runtime: 2 hrs 19 mins
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill
Screenwriter: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Composer: Alfred Newman
DVD Info
Release:
Aug 4, 2008
DVD Features:
- 2-Disc Set
- Pan & Scan -1.33
Audio:
- Mono - English, Spanish, French
- Stereo - English
- Disc 1: ALL ABOUT EVE - Theatrical Presentation
Additional Release Material:
- Audio Commentaries - 1. Celeste Holm - Star; Joseph L. Mankiewicz - Director; Ken Geist - Author/Film Biographer; Christopher Mankiewicz - Director's Son
- 2. Sam Staggs - Author/Film Historian
- Isolated Audio Track - Musical Score
- Disc 2: ALL ABOUT EVE - Supplemental Material
Additional Release Material:
- Additional Footage - "MovieTone News: 1951 Academy Awards Honor Best Film Achievements, 1951 Hollywood Attends Gala Premiere of "All About Eve," Holiday Magazine Awards, Look Magazine Awards"
- Behind the Scenes - "AMC Backstory: ALL ABOUT EVE"
- Comparisons - Restoration Comparison
- Documentaries - 1. "Joseph L. Mankiewicz: A Personal Journey"
- 2. "The Real Eve"
- Featurettes - 1. "Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz"
- 2. "The Secret of Sarah Siddons"
- Trailers - 1. Bette Davis Promotion
- 2. Ann Baxter Promotion
- 3. Theatrical Trailer
Text/Photo Galleries:
- Galleries - 1. Theatrical Pressbook Gallery
- 2. Advertising Gallery
- Stills/Photos
Reviews
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.
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).
For old-school Hollywood movie-making at its most polished, literate and sophisticated there is really nothing to match it.
[Features] more quotable dialogue in one movie than most screenwriters manage in a lifetime.
Forget Foreman vs. Ali, this is Baxter vs. Davis in one of Hollywood's greatest showdowns.
The Zanuck production investiture is plush in every department.
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.
Still retains its stagy power to provoke theater lovers by its elaborate wit and campy bad taste.
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.
Amazing performances top the list of positive qualities in Joseph L Mankiewicz' All About Eve.
Her display as Margo Channing shows Davis at the top of her game, not only for the acid-tongued egotism and bristling paranoia about the effects of the passing years, but for the moving realisation of the emotional toll exacted by her glittering career.
In one of the wittiest films to be made by Hollywood about the Broadway theater, Bette Davis shines as declining diva Margo Channing, but, alas, she was deprived from getting an Oscar by various political factors.
News
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