So, in LA, there's a cemetery called Hollywood Forever, where they play old movies. Every Saturday night, people are encouraged to stand in line for hours, then sit on the grass with a blanket and some wine and crackers and watch an old movie projected onto the side of a giant white wall. It certainly adds something to the movie you're watching if you really luck out and the bodies buried mere yards away are the same ones projected on the wall.
I saw All About Eve for the first time about a year ago, at Hollywood Forever, and I was a bit tipsy on the wine, was incredibly uncomfortable on the grass, and had forgotten a sweater so that by the time the movie actually started, I was shivering and huddled up against my friends for warmth and only occasionally glancing up at the "screen". From what I remember, I wasn't particularly impressed, but who knows, maybe my cozy living room will provide a better environment from which to evaluate:
Plot summary: We open on some sort of acting awards ceremony. It's a tiny room with a pretty small audience, so we're clearly not dealing with the movies here. The camera focuses on one fey dude smoking one of those long thin cigarettes from the movies as VO narration says, "that's me. I'm Addison DeWitt, a theatre critic. But of course you know that if you've read anything or watched anything or are aware of the world at all".
He's a theatre person, all right.
He introduces the rest of the group. There's the writer Lloyd and his wife Karen and the director Bill and his new wife Margo. Margo is Bette Davis, and she's sassy and brassy and Tells It Like It Is and has huge ugly bags under her eyes and tons of gay men love her and I'll never understand the fascination so many of my people have with rude old women. I mean, don't get me wrong. We don't corner the market on the love of ridiculous camp and corniness. The straight guy equivalent is Ahnold and Steven Segal and The Expendables type crap. That's just as camp as Ethel Merman, they just don't admit it. And to straight women who mock, I throw Edward and Jacob and a million shitty romance novels at your feet and shout, "J'Accuse!" And the lesbians like...not really sure what the lesbians like that's crap. kd Lang? Ellen? Ellen's pretty cool, though. Oh, Rosie! She sucks, right? But does anyone still like her? Hmm. At any rate, everyone likes some shitty stuff and everyone judges everyone else for liking the shitty stuff that they don't like and that's just how it goes. Except me. I only like quality stuff. Oh, and Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Come on, that shit's fucking awesome. Also Rat Race.
But I digress.
So the award is for Eve Harrington, a bright new theatre star who is about to make the big move to Hollywood and Addison VO's that just one year ago Eve was a nobody, and now she's the biggest star ever.
Flashback. Eve stands outside the theatre, a play that Margo was in, and Karen approaches her. They talk for awhile, and Eve says she has seen every night of the play for the entire run, and that she loves Margo so very much and could she possibly pretty please meet her?
Karen lets her in backstage. Margo is sassy and petulant and bossy to everyone and then Karen walks in with Eve and Eve gushes and curtsies and avoids eye contact and says she first saw Margo in a touring production in San Francisco and she loved her so much she followed her across the country to New York.
Instead of calling the cops, Margo is flattered. Then Eve tells a story about how she's a poor orphan and her husband died in the war and by the end of it, Margo has invited her to live with her and allowed her to work as a stagehand on the play.
So time passes, and at one point Margo's younger boyfriend Bill is away on business in California and it's his birthday and Eve oversteps by sending him a present from Margo and Margo's maid doesn't trust her and finally Margo starts to not trust her, even though everyone else but the maid loves her. Then it's Margo's birthday party and Margo sees Eve talking a lot to Bill and schmoozing with Lloyd the writer and she starts getting jealous. And hey, Marilyn Monroe is there! You know, she was really quite attractive. Is anyone else aware of this? Then Margo starts drinking and she says the applause line, "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!" like she's gonna be so extra sassy tonight, and then she just proceeds to get all drunk and weepy and insecure. She accuses Bill of sleeping with Eve and he says she's crazy, then she makes a big drunken spectacle of herself and then goes to bed.
Eve asks Karen if she could be Margo's understudy, and Karen says yes.
Then a week later, Margo shows up late for the reading of their new play, and Addison tells her that Eve stepped in and was so awesome and everybody loved her and Lloyd in particular was happy to have someone "new" and "fresh" reading his lines. Margo throws another shit fit and Lloyd and Karen get mad at her and walk out of rehearsal. The next day, Margo, Bill, Lloyd, and Karen were all supposed to go out for a day trip in the country, and they go despite the argument, but that night when they head back to the train to get Margo back in town for her show, the car runs out of gas. Margo takes it better than expected, but she doesn't know that Karen for some reason conspired with Eve to make Margo miss the train, because Karen wanted to "teach Margo a lesson" about being so mean all the time.
By the way, all of this is moving at a fucking snail's pace. Every single scene is about twice as long as it needs to be, with pointless, circular dialog and self-indulgent pauses that would make Pinter blush.
So it turns out, Eve called every theatre critic in town to come and see her that night, and they all did, and they all loved it. Bill sees Eve backstage and tells her she did a great job, and she hits on him, but he says his heart belongs to ol' baggy eyes and he walks out. The critic Addison asks Eve to do an interview with him, and she consents.
The next day, the article is filled with quotes from Eve bashing Margo and Addison says she's old and washed up and Eve is the new hotness. Everyone's sad and Bill fires Eve from the play.
Then they all go out to dinner to cheer up Margo, and the waiter passes a note to Karen from Eve who is in the bathroom and wants to speak to her right away. They all talk for probably ten fucking minutes wondering what Eve could possibly want and then finally Karen goes to the bathroom and they talk for ten fucking more minutes until Eve finally gets to the point: she's blackmailing Karen. Either Karen convince Lloyd to cast her as the lead in his next play, or she'll tell Margo that Karen was the one who drained the gas out of the car. Karen goes back to dinner and Margo announces that she and Bill are getting married and she doesn't even want to be in the play because she's found her purpose in the world as a man's appendage. Karen's super relieved that she won't have to screw over Margo because that would be an interesting plot line. Then Lloyd casts Eve and she does really well and then one day she's talking to Addison about how awesome she is and she says Lloyd is leaving his wife for her and Addison says "you belong to me now" and she's like "Whaaaa????" and he says he investigated her and learned that she's not an orphan, and not a widow and her whole backstory is a lie and he threatens to expose her if she doesn't...admit that she belongs to him. Which entails...what? Nothing is explained.
That night, the flashback catches up with the beginning of the movie, and Eve accepts her award and profusely thanks her "friends", Karen, Bill, Lloyd, and Margo who all stare daggers at her, despite the fact that they're all professionals and out in public, and then afterwards Eve is all bitchy and despondent, and then she goes back home and a girl is in her house. She screams and the girl's like, my name's Phoebe, and I'm your biggest fan...
Ah. The circle continues. Got it.
Oh, wait. The movie's not done yet. In case you're not aware that Phoebe is now Old Eve and Eve is now Margo, the movie will hammer that point for another ten minutes with Phoebe saying the same general shit Eve was saying the beginning, and Eve acting like Margo used to, and then Phoebe stands in front of the mirror holding Eve's dress and award and pretending like it's hers and DO YOU GET IT YET?????
Done.
Review: I'm sorry, but this is really boring. The pacing is ridiculously slow, the writing is bland, the characters aren't that great. Bette Davis' performance is pretty good, but even she is hobbled and neutered in the end by the love of a good man, and all the rest of her friends were totally boring. There's very little scheming, no real surprises, or sudden fun reversals of fate. It's just bad. I'll be turning in my gay card, now. Which means I can probably stop watching Glee.
Stars: One and a half out of five.
Next, "High Noon" and then a movie about the goodness and purity of politics, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".
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