• Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  • Year: 1950
  • Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Walter Hampden
  • Runtime: 2h 18m
  • Available on: iTunes

A delightful movie that is as theatrical in delivery as the thespian drama it portrays.

The dialogue is sharp and quick and Bette Davis is outstanding. It's All About Eve, Sure, But What About Margo?

Nobody behaves quite like you expect them to. The 1950s men are doting and mostly well behaved.

Margo is fiery and emotional but she is not naive and, speaking as someone around the same age, her struggles to move into the next phase of her life feel all too relatable.

When it comes to Eve herself, she is cunning and manipulative but one gets the impression she doesn't want to hurt anyone, that it is more she has a hole inside her that she is trying to fill.

(This is obviously less relatable to me personally who wouldn't know what that was like in any way, shape, or form, no ma'am.)

There is the one moment where the claws come out as she threatens Karen but even then that threat is immediately neutralised by the ever-mercurial Margo.

Karen's relief at this, the moment she realises what she almost lost, speaks to the heart of the film: Contrasted against the desperate and lonely transactional ambition of Eve and DeWitt, the friendship and partnership of that core four is what ends up being most compelling.