Deception and Betrayal in “All About Eve”
All About Eve
1950 Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Bette Davis, Ann Baxter, Celeste Holm, George Sanders
“All warfare is based on deception,” –Unknown
SPOILER ALERT
This drama tells the story of Margo Channing (Davis), a Broadway star at the height of her career, and Eve Harrington (Baxter), a star-struck wannabe who will stop at nothing to reach the same heights. Margo is middle-aged; Eve is probably in her twenties. Margo discovers Eve, takes her under her wing, and wants to help her succeed. But things soon change.
The film begins at a banquet, where Eve receives accolades for her acting. It then looks back to how this occurred. In a scene in Margo's dressing room after her performance in a play, her friend, Karen Richards (Holm), brings a shy Eve back to meet her. Eve’s story is a sad one; she’s a young widow who grew up poor, eventually seeing Margo perform in San Francisco, idolizing her, and following her to see all of her performances. Margo naively befriends Eve and brings her into her theatrical circle: her playwright and Karen's husband, Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe); her director and boyfriend, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill); and eventually, her producer, Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff).
The film is layered with duplicity and betrayal at nearly every turn, even in the most banal of circumstances. During the introductions, Margo puts on airs as she introduces Eve to her assistant, Birdie (Thelma Ritter). Birdie will have none of this and shouts, "Oh, brother!" Margo offers Eve a job as her personal secretary but, through a turn of events, she becomes Margo's understudy. This strategic move thrusts her onto the stage, unbeknownst to Margo. Taking on such a role can be interpreted as a form of fraud committed upon an audience who would have expected to see Margo, rather than Eve. This is because Karen helps Eve by arranging for Margo to miss the performance; Karen writes it off as a “harmless joke, one which even Margo will enjoy.” Unfortunately for Margo, important critics attend that night and Eve capitalizes on a great opportunity that gives her the exposure she craves. Karen's kind gesture comes back to haunt her and Margo: Eve blackmails Karen into having Lloyd give her the lead in his new play.
The theme of deception is deeply woven into the fabric of this film. Importantly, it surfaces in regards to Margo's age. She has become a star in Lloyd’s plays, but fears that at forty she can no longer credibly play his ageless "Cora" and requests a change. He rejects this, “You're as young as you want to be,” to which Margo retorts, “You mean as young as they want me to be." Margo is keenly aware that her past success in the theater will disappear as she ages; she realizes that this is a deception that won’t work much longer. The role goes to Eve and she becomes emboldened. At one point she flirts with Bill, Margo’s handsome boyfriend. Margo tacitly fears that he will realize that younger women abound and will abandon her, "He's thirty-two, he'll always look thirty-two. . . ," she states. Unexpectedly, Bill rejects Eve—a twist that "deceives" the viewers’ expectation.
It is only Addison DeWitt (Sanders), the movie critic, who cannot be fooled by Eve. He realizes she has lied to everyone and exposes her. She is not the war widow she claimed to be, neither had she seen Margo at the non-existent San Francisco theater she had mentioned. And we realize that perhaps Margo is not really her idol at all, just a convenient sap who allowed her to worm her way into her good graces so she could climb her way to the top.
A final form of deception in this film deserves to be mentioned here. The title ought to be “All About Margo.” One could argue that it is her story; she is the protagonist and heroine, not Eve. She is the one we care about, the one betrayed. Once we realize that Eve is a liar and a cheat, we become aware that we really know nothing about her. And that is one of the truths offered to us about such people in this brilliant classic.