And you really don't need to know about the theater, because it is ultimately about the many facets of human nature.
I absolutely adore this movie. It helps when I love Bette Davis, but this is something altogether different from your run-of-the-mill drama, much less your typical Bette Davis melodrama. First and foremost, the screenplay is quite simply one of the best ever written alongside Network and a few others. Mankiewicz's tremendous knack for biting language is glorious. He had shown shades of this gift in his screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives the previous year, but this screenplay is something else.
A screenplay, nevertheless, can't singlehandedly make a film as brilliant as this. Mankiewicz pairs his writing with superb direction and the performances are splendid. Davis gives almost undoubtedly the best performance of her illustrious career as the aging Margo Channing and Anne Baxter turns in a quite good performance that sneaks up on you before her character, Eve Harrington, falls prey to herself. Celeste Holm is great as the conflicted friend of both Margo and Eve, Karen Richards. Thelma Ritter delivers a funny, yet powerful performance as Birdie, a part that is inconsequential at first glance. My favorite performance, however, is the absolutely magnificent supporting performance given by George Sanders as the cynical, sardonic, conniving journalist Addison DeWitt. His voice is perfect and his cane and cigarette holder are forever etched in my memory. Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards is really a blank, though a better casting choice probably would have resulted in a more complex interpretation of this admittedly bland character.
It's rather ironic when Margo confides to Karen that she wants Bill (Gary Merrill) to love her, the woman, not the actress, because the actress will fade with time. Eve worries over the difference in their ages, Eve being eight years older than Bill. Bette Davis and Gary Merrill did get married, and though it lasted longer than Davis' other unions, it ultimately failed. Davis later said that their mistake was that they thought they were marrying the characters in the film, and when the film faded into the past, there was no basis for a relationship.
I absolutely adore this movie. It helps when I love Bette Davis, but this is something altogether different from your run-of-the-mill drama, much less your typical Bette Davis melodrama. First and foremost, the screenplay is quite simply one of the best ever written alongside Network and a few others. Mankiewicz's tremendous knack for biting language is glorious. He had shown shades of this gift in his screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives the previous year, but this screenplay is something else.
A screenplay, nevertheless, can't singlehandedly make a film as brilliant as this. Mankiewicz pairs his writing with superb direction and the performances are splendid. Davis gives almost undoubtedly the best performance of her illustrious career as the aging Margo Channing and Anne Baxter turns in a quite good performance that sneaks up on you before her character, Eve Harrington, falls prey to herself. Celeste Holm is great as the conflicted friend of both Margo and Eve, Karen Richards. Thelma Ritter delivers a funny, yet powerful performance as Birdie, a part that is inconsequential at first glance. My favorite performance, however, is the absolutely magnificent supporting performance given by George Sanders as the cynical, sardonic, conniving journalist Addison DeWitt. His voice is perfect and his cane and cigarette holder are forever etched in my memory. Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards is really a blank, though a better casting choice probably would have resulted in a more complex interpretation of this admittedly bland character.
It's rather ironic when Margo confides to Karen that she wants Bill (Gary Merrill) to love her, the woman, not the actress, because the actress will fade with time. Eve worries over the difference in their ages, Eve being eight years older than Bill. Bette Davis and Gary Merrill did get married, and though it lasted longer than Davis' other unions, it ultimately failed. Davis later said that their mistake was that they thought they were marrying the characters in the film, and when the film faded into the past, there was no basis for a relationship.