I Watch Films: All About Eve

All About Eve

The film is framed by an awards dinner in which Eve Harrington, on the, um, eve of departing for Hollywood, is being honoured as the youngest Broadway actress to ever receive the award. There are a series of flashbacks that promise to tell us all about Eve.

She was a fan of Margo Channing, a big star who is turning forty, and is introduced by Karen, the wife of Lloyd, the writer of Margo’s best plays. She then attaches herself to her household as an assistant. Making herself indispensable she then connives her way into the lives of her circle, for example setting up a long distance  call to Margo’s boyfriend, theatre director Bill, on his birthday.

She manoeuvres her way into being Margo’s understudy, arranges for critics to be there on a night Karen keeps Margo from the theatre (as part of their own disagreements) and is a sensation. But as she goes on pulling strings she finds there are others in the theatre world as cunning and ruthless as she.

Watch This: A classic film about the cutthroat world of the theatre, lies and ambition
Don’t Read This: Women plotting against each other does nothing for you