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Mary Orr

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  (Redirected from The Wisdom of Eve)
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For the Canadian pair skater, see Mary Orr (figure skater).
Mary Caswell Orr (December 21, 1910 – September 22, 2006) was an American actress and author whose short story "The Wisdom of Eve", published in the May 1946 issue of Cosmopolitan, was the basis of the Academy Award-winning film All About Eve (1950).[1] In private life, Orr used her married name, Mary Orr Denham.
Orr was born in Brooklyn, New York. She and her family relocated to Canton, Ohio when she was a girl. She studied at Syracuse University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan.[1]
"The Wisdom of Eve" was loosely based upon a woman who had been the secretary of Viennese actress Elisabeth Bergner.[1] Orr wrote a radio adaptation which aired on NBC in 1949 and led to the movie being made.[1] While she did not receive screen credit for All About Eve (she had sold the story to Twentieth Century Fox for $5000),[1] she did receive a Screen Writers Guild award for her original story.[2]
In 1964, she and her husband, director-playwright Reginald Denham, adapted the short story into a play of the same name, which was produced off-Broadway in 1979. In 1970, a hit Broadway musical, Applause, was based on All About Eve and gave a credit to Mary Orr for the original story. She wrote a sequel to "The Wisdom of Eve" titled "More About Eve", which was published in Cosmopolitan in July 1951.[1]
In addition to Applause, Mary Orr and Reginald Denham had four plays that opened on Broadway. Their first and most successful, Wallflower, ran for 192 performances in 1944.[1][3] Round Trip was presented in 1945, while Dark Hammock started its performances in 1946. The fourth, Be Your Age, made its Broadway appearance in 1953.[3][4] She also acted in Broadway plays, including two of her own: Wallflower and Dark Hammock.[3] Wallflower was the basis for a 1948 film of the same name.[5]
Alone or with her husband, Orr wrote five books and forty television scripts.
Orr died of pneumonia in Manhattan in 2006.[1] She was predeceased by her husband, who died in 1983.[1]
Books[edit]
Diamonds in the Sky (1957)
A Place to Meet (1961)
The Tejera Secrets (1974)
Rich Girl, Poor Girl (1975)
Lucky Star
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Margalit Fox (October 6, 2006). "Mary Orr, 95, an Author Who Inspired 'All About Eve', Is Dead". The New York Times.
2.Jump up ^ Awards-Mary Orr
3.^ Jump up to: a b c Mary Orr at the Internet Broadway Database
4.Jump up ^ WOSU presents Ohiana Authors: Mary Orr
5.Jump up ^ Wallflower at the Internet Movie Database
External links[edit]
Mary Orr at the Internet Movie Database


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Mary Orr

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from The Wisdom of Eve)
Jump to: navigation, search

For the Canadian pair skater, see Mary Orr (figure skater).
Mary Caswell Orr (December 21, 1910 – September 22, 2006) was an American actress and author whose short story "The Wisdom of Eve", published in the May 1946 issue of Cosmopolitan, was the basis of the Academy Award-winning film All About Eve (1950).[1] In private life, Orr used her married name, Mary Orr Denham.
Orr was born in Brooklyn, New York. She and her family relocated to Canton, Ohio when she was a girl. She studied at Syracuse University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan.[1]
"The Wisdom of Eve" was loosely based upon a woman who had been the secretary of Viennese actress Elisabeth Bergner.[1] Orr wrote a radio adaptation which aired on NBC in 1949 and led to the movie being made.[1] While she did not receive screen credit for All About Eve (she had sold the story to Twentieth Century Fox for $5000),[1] she did receive a Screen Writers Guild award for her original story.[2]
In 1964, she and her husband, director-playwright Reginald Denham, adapted the short story into a play of the same name, which was produced off-Broadway in 1979. In 1970, a hit Broadway musical, Applause, was based on All About Eve and gave a credit to Mary Orr for the original story. She wrote a sequel to "The Wisdom of Eve" titled "More About Eve", which was published in Cosmopolitan in July 1951.[1]
In addition to Applause, Mary Orr and Reginald Denham had four plays that opened on Broadway. Their first and most successful, Wallflower, ran for 192 performances in 1944.[1][3] Round Trip was presented in 1945, while Dark Hammock started its performances in 1946. The fourth, Be Your Age, made its Broadway appearance in 1953.[3][4] She also acted in Broadway plays, including two of her own: Wallflower and Dark Hammock.[3] Wallflower was the basis for a 1948 film of the same name.[5]
Alone or with her husband, Orr wrote five books and forty television scripts.
Orr died of pneumonia in Manhattan in 2006.[1] She was predeceased by her husband, who died in 1983.[1]
Books[edit]
Diamonds in the Sky (1957)
A Place to Meet (1961)
The Tejera Secrets (1974)
Rich Girl, Poor Girl (1975)
Lucky Star
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Margalit Fox (October 6, 2006). "Mary Orr, 95, an Author Who Inspired 'All About Eve', Is Dead". The New York Times.
2.Jump up ^ Awards-Mary Orr
3.^ Jump up to: a b c Mary Orr at the Internet Broadway Database
4.Jump up ^ WOSU presents Ohiana Authors: Mary Orr
5.Jump up ^ Wallflower at the Internet Movie Database
External links[edit]
Mary Orr at the Internet Movie Database


Authority control
VIAF: 30035543
 

  


Categories: 1910 births
2006 deaths
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American stage actresses
American short story writers
People from Brooklyn
20th-century American novelists
American Academy of Dramatic Arts alumni
Syracuse University alumni
Deaths from pneumonia




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All About Eve

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For other uses, see All About Eve (disambiguation).

All About Eve
AllAboutEve.jpeg
1967 US re-release film poster
 
Directed by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Produced by
Darryl F. Zanuck
Screenplay by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Based on
"The Wisdom of Eve"
 by Mary Orr
Starring
Bette Davis
Anne Baxter
George Sanders
Celeste Holm
Music by
Alfred Newman
Cinematography
Milton R. Krasner
Edited by
Barbara McLean
Distributed by
20th Century Fox

Release dates

October 13, 1950
 

Running time
 138 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$1.4 million[2][3]
Box office
$8,400,000[4]
All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It was based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr, although screen credit was not given for it.
The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star. Anne Baxter plays Eve Harrington, an ambitious young fan who insinuates herself into Channing's life, ultimately threatening Channing's career and her personal relationships. George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Barbara Bates, Gary Merrill, and Thelma Ritter also appear, and the film provided one of Marilyn Monroe's earliest important roles.
Praised by critics at the time of its release, All About Eve was nominated for 14 Academy Awards (a feat unmatched until the 1997 film Titanic) and won six, including Best Picture. As of 2015, All About Eve is still the only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations (Davis and Baxter as Best Actress, Holm and Ritter as Best Supporting Actress). All About Eve was selected in 1990 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and was among the first 50 films to be registered. All About Eve appeared at #16 on AFI's 1998 list of the 100 best American films.[5]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Development
3.2 Casting
4 Response 4.1 Critical reaction
4.2 Thematic content
5 Awards and honors 5.1 Awards and nominations
5.2 Later recognition and rankings
5.3 Sarah Siddons Award
6 Adaptations
7 In popular culture
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]

 

Bette Davis as Margo Channing
At an awards dinner, Eve Harrington—the newest and brightest star on Broadway—is being presented the Sarah Siddons Award for her breakout performance as Cora in Footsteps on the Ceiling. Theatre critic Addison DeWitt observes the proceedings and, in a sardonic voiceover, recalls how Eve's star rose as quickly as it did.
The film flashes back a year. Margo Channing is one of the biggest stars on Broadway, but despite her success she is bemoaning her age, having just turned forty and knowing what that will mean for her career. After a performance one night, Margo's close friend Karen Richards, wife of the play's author Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), meets besotted fan Eve Harrington in the cold alley outside the stage door. Recognizing her from having passed her many times in the alley (as Eve claims to have seen every performance of Margo's current play, Aged in Wood), Karen takes her backstage to meet Margo. Eve tells the group gathered in Margo's dressing room—Karen and Lloyd, Margo's boyfriend Bill Sampson, a director who is eight years her junior, and Margo's maid Birdie—that she followed Margo's last theatrical tour to New York after seeing her in a play in San Francisco. She tells a moving story of growing up poor and losing her young husband in the recent war. Moved, Margo quickly befriends Eve, takes her into her home, and hires her as her assistant, leaving Birdie, who instinctively dislikes Eve, feeling put out.

 

Anne Baxter in wig and costume as Eve Harrington, Margo Channing's understudy
Eve is gradually shown to be working to supplant Margo, scheming to become her understudy behind her back, driving wedges between her and Lloyd and Bill, and conspiring with an unsuspecting Karen to cause Margo to miss a performance. Eve, knowing in advance that she will be the one appearing that night, invites the city's theatre critics to attend that evening's performance, which is a triumph for her. Eve tries to seduce Bill, but he rejects her. Following a scathing newspaper column by Addison, Margo and Bill reconcile, dine with the Richardses, and decide to marry. That same night at the restaurant, Eve blackmails Karen into telling Lloyd to give her the part of Cora, by threatening to tell Margo of Karen's role in Margo's missed performance. Before Karen can talk with Lloyd, Margo announces to everyone's surprise that she does not wish to play Cora and would prefer to continue in Aged in Wood. Eve secures the role and attempts to climb higher by using Addison, who is beginning to doubt her. Just before the premiere of her play at the Shubert in New Haven, Eve presents Addison with her next plan: to marry Lloyd, who, she claims, has come to her professing his love and his eagerness to leave his wife for her. Now, Eve exults, Lloyd will write brilliant plays showcasing her. Unseen but mentioned in dialogue, Karen has begun to suspect Eve as a threat to her own marriage to Lloyd, and so she and Addison meet for lunch and help each other put the pieces about Eve together. Addison is infuriated that Eve has attempted to use him and reveals that he knows that her back story is all lies. Her real name is Gertrude Slojinski, she was never married, and she had been paid to leave her hometown over an affair with her boss, a brewer in Wisconsin. Addison blackmails Eve, informing her that she will not be marrying Lloyd or anyone else; in exchange for Addison's silence, she now "belongs" to him.
The film returns to the opening scene in which Eve, now a shining Broadway star headed for Hollywood, is presented with her award. In her speech, she thanks Margo and Bill and Lloyd and Karen with characteristic effusion, while all four stare back at her coldly. After the awards ceremony, Eve hands her award to Addison, skips a party in her honor, and returns home alone, where she encounters a young fan—a high-school girl—who has slipped into her apartment and fallen asleep. The young girl professes her adoration and begins at once to insinuate herself into Eve's life, offering to pack Eve's trunk for Hollywood and being accepted. "Phoebe", as she calls herself, answers the door to find Addison returning with Eve's award. In a revealing moment, the young girl flirts daringly with the older man. Addison hands over the award to Phoebe and leaves without entering. Phoebe then lies to Eve, telling her it was only a cab driver who dropped off the award. While Eve rests in the other room, Phoebe dons Eve's elegant costume robe and poses in front of a multi-paned mirror, holding the award as if it were a crown. The mirrors transform Phoebe into multiple images of herself, and she bows regally, as if accepting the award to thunderous applause, while triumphant music plays.
Cast[edit]

 

 A young and then-unknown Marilyn Monroe as Miss Casswell in a scene with Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, and George SandersBette Davis as Margo Channing
Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington
George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
Celeste Holm as Karen Richards
Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards
Thelma Ritter as Birdie
Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian
Marilyn Monroe as Miss Casswell
Barbara Bates as Phoebe
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
The story of All About Eve originated in an anecdote related to Mary Orr by actress Elisabeth Bergner. While performing in The Two Mrs. Carrolls during 1943 and 1944, Bergner allowed a young fan to become part of her household and employed her as an assistant, but later regretted her generosity when the woman attempted to undermine her. Referring to her only as "the terrible girl", Bergner related the events to Orr, who used it as the basis for her short story "The Wisdom of Eve" (1946). In the story, Orr gives the girl a more ruthless character and allows her to succeed in stealing the older actress' career. Bergner later confirmed the basis of the story in her autobiography Bewundert viel, und viel gescholten (Greatly Admired and Greatly Scolded).
In 1949, Mankiewicz was considering a story about an aging actress and, upon reading "The Wisdom of Eve", felt the conniving girl would be a useful added element. He sent a memo to Darryl F. Zanuck saying it "fits in with an original idea [of mine] and can be combined. Superb starring role for Susan Hayward." Mankiewicz presented a film treatment of the combined stories under the title Best Performance. He changed the main character's name from Margola Cranston to Margo Channing and retained several of Orr's characters — Eve Harrington, Lloyd and Karen Richards, and Miss Casswell — while removing Margo Channing's husband completely and replacing him with a new character, Bill Sampson. The intention was to depict Channing in a new relationship and allow Eve Harrington to threaten both Channing's professional and personal lives. Mankiewicz also added the characters Addison DeWitt, Birdie Coonan, Max Fabian, and Phoebe.
Zanuck was enthusiastic and provided numerous suggestions for improving the screenplay. In some sections, he felt Mankiewicz's writing lacked subtlety or provided excessive detail. He suggested diluting Birdie Coonan's jealousy of Eve so the audience would not recognize Eve as a villain until much later in the story. Zanuck reduced the screenplay by about 50 pages and chose the title All About Eve from the opening scenes in which Addison DeWitt says he will soon tell "more of Eve ... All about Eve, in fact."[6]
Casting[edit]

 

 The principal cast of All About Eve. (Left to right) Gary Merrill, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm
Among the actresses originally considered to play Margo Channing were Mankiewicz's original inspiration, Susan Hayward, who was rejected by Zanuck as "too young", Marlene Dietrich, dismissed as "too German", and Gertrude Lawrence, who was ruled out of contention when her lawyer insisted that Lawrence not have to drink or smoke in the film, and that the script would be rewritten to allow her to sing a torch song.[7] Zanuck favored Barbara Stanwyck, but she was not available. Tallulah Bankhead and Ingrid Bergman were also considered, as was Joan Crawford,[8] who was already working on the film The Damned Don't Cry.
Eventually, the role went to Claudette Colbert, but when Colbert severely injured her back and was forced to withdraw shortly before filming began, Bette Davis was chosen to replace her.[7] Davis, who had recently ended an 18-year association with Warner Bros. after several poorly received films, immediately accepted the role after realizing it was one of the best she had ever read. Channing had originally been conceived as genteel and knowingly humorous, but with the casting of Davis, Mankiewicz revised the character to be more abrasive. Mankiewicz praised Davis for both her professionalism and the calibre of her performance, but in later years continued to discuss how Colbert would have played the role.
Anne Baxter had spent a decade in supporting roles and had won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Razor's Edge. She got the role of Eve Harrington after the first choice, Jeanne Crain, became pregnant. Crain was at the height of her popularity and had established a career playing likable heroines; Zanuck believed she lacked the "bitch virtuosity" required by the part, and audiences would not accept her as a deceitful character.
The role of Bill Sampson was originally intended for John Garfield or Ronald Reagan. Reagan's future wife Nancy Davis was considered for Karen Richards and Jose Ferrer for Addison DeWitt. Zsa Zsa Gabor actively sought the role of Phoebe without realizing the producers were considering her, along with Angela Lansbury, for Miss Casswell.[citation needed]
Mankiewicz greatly admired Thelma Ritter and wrote the character of Birdie Coonan for her after working with her on A Letter to Three Wives in 1949. As Coonan was the only one immediately suspicious of Eve Harrington, he was confident Ritter would contribute a shrewd characterisation casting doubt on Eve and providing a counterpoint to the more "theatrical" personalities of the other characters. Marilyn Monroe, relatively unknown at the time, was cast as Miss Casswell, referred to by DeWitt as a "graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art". Monroe got the part after a lobbying campaign by her agent,[9] despite Zanuck's initial antipathy and belief she was better suited to comedy.[citation needed] Angela Lansbury had been originally considered for the role.[9] The inexperienced Monroe was cowed by Bette Davis, and took 11 takes to complete the scene in the theatre lobby with the star; when Davis barked at her, Monroe left the set to vomit.[9] Smaller roles were filled by Gregory Ratoff as the producer Max Fabian, Barbara Bates as Phoebe, a young fan of Eve Harrington, and Walter Hampden as the master of ceremonies at an award presentation.[6]
Response[edit]
Critical reaction[edit]
All About Eve received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics upon its release on October 13, 1950 at a New York City premiere. The film's competitor, Sunset Boulevard, released the same year, drew similar praise, and the two were often favorably compared. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times loved the film, stating it was "a fine Darryl Zanuck production, excellent music and on air ultra-class complete the superior satire".[10]
Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times praised the film, saying Bette Davis' character "veteran actress Margo Channing in All About Eve was her greatest role".[11] A collection of reviews from the film's release are stored on the website Rottentomatoes.com, and All About Eve has garnered 100% positive reviews there, making it "Certified fresh". Boxoffice.com stated that it "is a classic of the American cinema – to this day the quintessential depiction of ruthless ambition in the entertainment industry, with legendary performances from Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders anchoring one of the very best films from one of Hollywood's very best Golden Era filmmakers: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It is a film that belongs on every collector's shelf – whether on video or DVD. It is a classic that deserves better than what Fox has given it."[12]
Thematic content[edit]
Critics and academics have delineated various themes in the film. Rebecca Flint Marx, in her Allmovie review, notes the antagonism that existed between Broadway and Hollywood at the time, stating that the "script summoned into existence a whole array of painfully recognizable theatre types, from the aging, egomaniacal grand dame to the outwardly docile, inwardly scheming ingenue to the powerful critic who reeks of malignant charm."[13] Roger Ebert, in his review in The Great Movies, says Eve Harrington is "a universal type", and focuses on the aging actress plot line, comparing the film to Sunset Boulevard.[14] Similarly, Marc Lee's 2006 review of the film for The Daily Telegraph describes a subtext "into the darker corners of show business, exposing its inherent ageism, especially when it comes to female stars."[15] Kathleen Woodward's 1999 book, Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Theories of Contemporary Culture), also discusses themes that appeared in many of the "aging actress" films of the 1950s and 1960s, including All About Eve. She reasons that Margo has three options: "To continue to work, she can perform the role of a young woman, one she no longer seems that interested in. She can take up the position of the angry bitch, the drama queen who holds court (the deliberate camp that Sontag finds in this film). Or she can accept her culture's gendered discourse of aging which figures her as in her moment of fading. Margo ultimately chooses the latter option, accepting her position as one of loss."[16]

 

 Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
Professor Robert J. Corber, who has studied homophobia within the cultural context of the Cold War in the United States, posits that the foundational theme in All About Eve is that the defense of the norms of heterosexuality, specifically in terms of patriarchal marriage, must be upheld in the face of challenges from female agency and homosexuality.[17] The nurturing heterosexual relationships of Margo and Bill and of Karen and Lloyd serve to contrast with the loveless relationship predation and sterile careerism of the homosexual characters, Eve and Addison.[18] Eve uses her physical femininity as a weapon to try to break up the marriages of both couples, and Addison's extreme cynicism serves as a model of Eve's future. Even film reviewer Kenneth Geist, despite being critical of the emphasis that Sam Staggs' book All About All About Eve places on the film's homosexual elements, nonetheless acknowledged that Eve's lesbianism seemed apparent; specifically, Geist states that "manifestations of Eve’s lesbianism are only twice briefly discernible".[19] Geist asserted that Mankiewicz "was highly contemptuous of both male and female homosexuals",[19] although Mankiewicz himself suggested otherwise in an interview in which he argued that society should "drop its vendetta against them".[20]

 

 George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
Homosexuality was often linked to Communism during the Cold War's Lavender Scare and critics have written about film's subtle, yet central, Cold War narrative. The fair amount of subtlety employed in All About Eve is seen as primarily being due to Production Code restrictions on the depiction of homosexuals in the media during this time.[17][21] However, notwithstanding those restrictions, Corber cites the film as but one example of a recurrent theme within American film of the homosexual as an emotionally bereft predator.[17] The documentary The Celluloid Closet also affirms this theme to which Corber refers, including citing numerous other film examples from the same Production Code time period in which All About Eve was made.[17][22]
Another important theme of the film, in terms of war politics and sexuality, involves the post-World War II pressure placed upon women to acquiesce agency. This pressure to resume "traditional" female roles is especially illustrated in this film in the contrast between Margo's mockery of Karen Richards for being a "happy little housewife" and her lengthy and inspired monologue, as a reformed woman later, about the virtuousness of marriage, including how a woman is not truly a woman without having a man beside her. This submissive and effeminate Margo is contrasted with the theatricality, combativeness, and egotism of the earlier career woman Margo, and the film's two homosexual characters. Margo quips that Eve should place her award "where her heart should be", and Eve is shown bereft at the end of the film. At dinner, the two married couples see Eve and Addison in a similarly negative light, with Margo wondering aloud what schemes Eve was constructing in her "feverish little brain". Additionally, Eve's utility as a personal assistant to Margo early in the film, which is a subtle construct of a same-sex intimate relationship, is decried by Birdie, the same working-class character who immediately detected the theatricality in Eve's story about her "husband". Birdie sees such agency as being unnatural, and the film contrasts its predatory nature ("studying you like a blueprint") with the love and warmth of her later reliance upon Bill. The pressure to acquiesce agency and more highly value patriarchy, following the return of men from the war, after having been shown propaganda promoting agency such as Rosie the Riveter and after having occupied traditionally male roles such as bomb-building factory worker, was deemed "the problem that has no name" by well-known feminist Betty Friedan.[23]
Despite what critics such as Corber have described as the homophobia pervasive in the movie,[17] All About Eve has long been a favored film among gay audiences, likely due to its campy overtones (in part due to the casting of Davis) and its general sophistication. Davis, who long had a strong gay fan base, expressed support for gay men in her 1972 interview with The Advocate.[24][25][26]
Awards and honors[edit]
Awards and nominations[edit]

Date of ceremony
Award
Category
Recipients and nominees
Result

February 22, 1951 British Academy Film Awards Best Film from any Source All About Eve Won
February 28, 1951 Golden Globe Awards Best Screenplay - Motion Picture Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Motion Picture All About Eve Nominated
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Bette Davis Nominated
Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz Nominated
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture George Sanders Nominated
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Thelma Ritter Nominated
March 29, 1951 Academy Awards[27] Best Picture All About Eve Won
Best Supporting Actor George Sanders Won
Best Costume Design - Black and white Edith Head, Charles LeMaire Won
Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Adapted Screenplay Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Sound Mixing Thomas Moulton Won
Best Actress in a Leading Role Anne Baxter Nominated
Bette Davis Nominated
Best Actress in a Supporting Role Celeste Holm Nominated
Thelma Ritter Nominated
Best Art Direction – Black-and-white George W. Davis, Lyle R. Wheeler and Thomas Little, Walter M. Scott Nominated
Best Cinematography – Black-and-white Milton R. Krasner Nominated
Best Film Editing Barbara McLean Nominated
Best Original Score Alfred Newman Nominated
April 3-20, 1951 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Bette Davis Won
Special Jury Prize All About Eve Won
Grand Prix du Festival International du Film All About Eve Nominated
May 27, 1951 Directors Guild of America Award Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
January 20, 1952 New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Film All About Eve Won
Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Actress Bette Davis Won

Later recognition and rankings[edit]
In 1990, All About Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[28] The film received in 1997 a placement on the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame. The film also earns a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their 100 Years lists.

Year
Category
Nominee
Rank
1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies All About Eve 16
2003 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains Eve Harrington (Villain) 23
2005 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" 9
2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores All About Eve Nominated
2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) All About Eve 28
When AFI named Bette Davis # 2 on its list of the greatest female American screen legends, All About Eve was the film selected to highlight Davis' legendary career.
Sarah Siddons Award[edit]
The film opens with the image of a fictitious award trophy, described by DeWitt as the "highest honor our theater knows: the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement." The statuette is modelled after the famous painting of Siddons costumed as the tragic Muse by Joshua Reynolds, a copy of which hangs in the entrance of Margo's apartment and often visible during the party scene. In 1952, a small group of distinguished Chicago theater-goers began to give an award with that name, which was sculpted to look like the one used in the film. It has been given annually, with past honorees including Bette Davis and Celeste Holm.
Adaptations[edit]
The first radio adaptation was broadcast on the Lux Radio Theatre on NBC on October 1, 1951 starring Bette Davis, Gary Merrill and Anne Baxter.[29]
A second radio version of All About Eve starring Tallulah Bankhead as Margo Channing was presented on NBC's The Big Show by the Theatre Guild of the Air on November 16, 1952.[30] The production is notable in that Mary Orr, the writer of the original short story that formed the basis for the original film, played the role of Karen Richards. The cast also featured Alan Hewitt as Addison DeWitt (who narrated), Beatrice Pearson as Eve Harrington, Don Briggs as Lloyd Richards, Kevin McCarthy as Bill Samson, Florence Robinson as Birdie Coonan, and Stefan Schnabel as Max Fabian.[30]
In 1970, All About Eve was the inspiration for the stage musical Applause, with book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. The original production starred Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing, and it won the Tony Award for Best Musical that season. It ran for four previews and 896 performances at the Palace Theatre on Broadway. After Bacall left the production, she was replaced by Anne Baxter in the role of Margo Channing.
In popular culture[edit]
The plot of the film has been used numerous times, frequently as an outright homage to the film, with one notable example being a 1974 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "A New Sue Ann". In the episode, the character of Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White), hostess of a popular local cooking show, hires a young, pretty and very eager fan as her apprentice and assistant, but the neophyte quickly begins to sabotage her mentor, in an attempt to replace her as host of the show. Sue Ann, however, unlike Margo Channing, prevails in the end, countering the young woman's attempts to steal her success and sending her on her way.[31]
The English rock band of the same name took their name from the film.[32]
A 2008 episode of The Simpsons, "All About Lisa", is influenced by this film. In the episode, Lisa Simpson becomes Krusty the Clown's assistant, eventually taking his place on television and receiving an entertainment award.[33]
Pedro Almodóvar's 1999 Academy Award-winning Spanish language film, Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), has elements similar to those found in All About Eve. The title of the film itself is an homage to the 1950 film. In the first scene, the character of Manuela and her son, Esteban, are watching a dubbed version of the film on television when the film is introduced as "Eve Unveiled". Esteban comments that the film should be called "Todo Sobre Eva" ("All About Eva"). Later in the scene, he begins writing about his mother in his notebook and calls the piece "Todo sobre Eva". Additionally, Manuela replaces Nina Cruz as Stella for a night in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire, leading a furious Nina to accuse her of learning the part "just like Eve Harrington!"
In a season 3 episode of Gossip Girl, titled "Enough About Eve", Blair Waldorf has a dream where she is Margo Channing.
In the fifth season of The L Word, a fan becomes Jenny Shecter's assistant while she is directing a movie; later the fan blackmails the movie studio into letting her direct and she proceeds to take over Jenny's life.
In the second season of Glee, Kurt Hummel calls his fellow glee club member Santana Lopez "a Latina Eve Harrington", after learning she is blackmailing a closeted jock into becoming her "beard" and running mate for Prom Queen and King.
In the first season of Will & Grace, Grace becomes dependent on a maid to give her a confidence boost during a design competition. This prompts her drunken assistant Karen to suspect a plot and she confronts the maid, exclaiming "I've seen 'All About Eve'. Poooor Eve!"
In the pilot episode of Political Animals, when Susan suspects Georgia, a fellow reporter, has a crush on her boyfriend and is attempting to outshine her at the newspaper, she says, "If Eve Harrington were an actual person today, she would look like Georgia. She would bake cupcakes, and she would have a blog."
In the third season of Gilligan's Island, the episode "All About Eva" concerns a character coming on the island and taking over Ginger's persona, with both roles played by actress Tina Louise.
In the fifth season of Quantum Leap, the plot of the episode "Goodbye Norma Jean" mirrors that of All About Eve. In it, Sam Beckett leaps into Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur and finds himself pitted against an aspiring actress who is trying to steal Monroe's part for the film The Misfits. Sam succeeds in stopping Monroe's rival, and she rightfully takes her place as Clark Gable's leading lady.[34][35]
See also[edit]
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "ALL ABOUT EVE (A)". British Board of Film Classification. October 2, 1950. Retrieved December 6, 2014.
2.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 245, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
3.Jump up ^ Rudy Behlmer, Behind the Scenes, Samuel French, 1990 p 208
4.Jump up ^ Box Office Information for All About Eve. The Numbers. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
5.Jump up ^ "America's Greatest Movies" AFI.com. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
6.^ Jump up to: a b Staggs, Sam: All About "All About Eve". St Martin's Press, 2001. ISBN 0-312-27315-0
7.^ Jump up to: a b TCM "Notes" on TCM.com
8.Jump up ^ Legendaryjoancrawford.com
9.^ Jump up to: a b c Miller, Frank "All About Eve" on TCM.com
10.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley. "Movie Review - All About Eve" New York Times (October 14, 1950)
11.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger "All About Eve (1950)" Chicago Sun-Times (11 June 2000)
12.Jump up ^ Boxoffice.com
13.Jump up ^ Marx, Rebecca Flint. All About Eve review on AllMovie.com. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
14.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger. "All About Eve (1950)", "Great Movies by Roger Ebert" on rogerebert.com, 6-11-2000.
15.Jump up ^ Lee, Marc. "Must-have movies: All About Eve (1950)" The Daily Telegraph (7 July 2006). Retrieved 8 August 2009.
16.Jump up ^ Woodward, Kathleen M. Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Theories of Contemporary Culture) Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 242. ISBN 0-253-21236-7
17.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Field, Douglas. "Gender and Sexuality – All about the Subversive Femme – Cold War Homophobia in All About Eve" in American Cold War Culture, Edinburgh University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-7486-1923-2, ISBN 978-0-7486-1923-8
18.Jump up ^ White, Patricia. "A Star is Beaten" in unInvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability, Indiana University Press, 1999. p. 202-12. ISBN 0253213452, ISBN 9780253213457
19.^ Jump up to: a b Geist, Kenneth. "All About 'All About Eve'". Films in Review, 2000
20.Jump up ^ Mankiewicz, Joseph L. and Dauth, Brian. Joseph L. Mankiewicz: Mankiewicz University Press of Mississippi, 2008)
21.Jump up ^ Corber, Robert. "Cold War Femme: Lesbian Visibility In ... All About Eve". GLQ Journal Duke University, 2005 11(1):1-22; doi:10.1215/10642684-11-1-1
22.Jump up ^ Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet. New York: Harper & Row, 1981 ISBN 0-06-090871-8, ISBN 978-0-06-090871-3
23.Jump up ^ Hunt, Heather. What Happened To Rosie The Riveter?, University of Maryland, 1999
24.Jump up ^ Burston, Paul. "She’s better, she’s Bette", The Times of London (22 November 2007)
25.Jump up ^ Cleto, Fabio. Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject, University of Michigan Press, 1999, ISBN 0-472-06722-2
26.Jump up ^ Sikov, Ed. Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. New York: Macmillan, 2007, ISBN 0-8050-7548-8
27.Jump up ^ "The 23rd Academy Awards (1951) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved August 10, 2014.
28.Jump up ^ "National Film Registry". Library of Congress, accessed October 28, 2011.
29.Jump up ^ Genericradio.com
30.^ Jump up to: a b Ironically, Bette Davis played three roles that had been originated on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead (in Dark Victory, Reflected Glory and The Little Foxes) – Bankhead and Davis were considered to be somewhat similar in style, with Davis a more disciplined performer who understood film better than Bankhead. Source: liner notes, All About Eve, Moving Finger LP MF002
31.Jump up ^ "A New Sue Ann" Starpulse.com
32.Jump up ^ Strong, Martin C. "All About Eve biography". The Great Rock Bible. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
33.Jump up ^ The Simpsons on Fox TVGuide.com. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
34.Jump up ^ De Vito, John; Tropea, Frank (2007). The Immortal Marilyn. United States: Scarecrow Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-8108-5866-4. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
35.Jump up ^ "Quantum Leap Season 5 Episode 18 Goodbye Norma Jean". TV.com. TV Guide. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to All About Eve.
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: All About Eve
All About Eve at the Internet Movie Database
All About Eve at the TCM Movie Database
All About Eve at Rotten Tomatoes
All About Eve Script from Internet Movie Script Database
All About Eve on Filmsite.org
Literature on All About Eve
Streaming audioAll About Eve on Lux Radio Theater: October 1, 1951
All About Eve on Theater Guild on the Air: November 16, 1952


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All About Eve

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For other uses, see All About Eve (disambiguation).

All About Eve
AllAboutEve.jpeg
1967 US re-release film poster
 
Directed by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Produced by
Darryl F. Zanuck
Screenplay by
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Based on
"The Wisdom of Eve"
 by Mary Orr
Starring
Bette Davis
Anne Baxter
George Sanders
Celeste Holm
Music by
Alfred Newman
Cinematography
Milton R. Krasner
Edited by
Barbara McLean
Distributed by
20th Century Fox

Release dates

October 13, 1950
 

Running time
 138 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$1.4 million[2][3]
Box office
$8,400,000[4]
All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It was based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr, although screen credit was not given for it.
The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star. Anne Baxter plays Eve Harrington, an ambitious young fan who insinuates herself into Channing's life, ultimately threatening Channing's career and her personal relationships. George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Barbara Bates, Gary Merrill, and Thelma Ritter also appear, and the film provided one of Marilyn Monroe's earliest important roles.
Praised by critics at the time of its release, All About Eve was nominated for 14 Academy Awards (a feat unmatched until the 1997 film Titanic) and won six, including Best Picture. As of 2015, All About Eve is still the only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations (Davis and Baxter as Best Actress, Holm and Ritter as Best Supporting Actress). All About Eve was selected in 1990 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry and was among the first 50 films to be registered. All About Eve appeared at #16 on AFI's 1998 list of the 100 best American films.[5]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Development
3.2 Casting
4 Response 4.1 Critical reaction
4.2 Thematic content
5 Awards and honors 5.1 Awards and nominations
5.2 Later recognition and rankings
5.3 Sarah Siddons Award
6 Adaptations
7 In popular culture
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]

 

Bette Davis as Margo Channing
At an awards dinner, Eve Harrington—the newest and brightest star on Broadway—is being presented the Sarah Siddons Award for her breakout performance as Cora in Footsteps on the Ceiling. Theatre critic Addison DeWitt observes the proceedings and, in a sardonic voiceover, recalls how Eve's star rose as quickly as it did.
The film flashes back a year. Margo Channing is one of the biggest stars on Broadway, but despite her success she is bemoaning her age, having just turned forty and knowing what that will mean for her career. After a performance one night, Margo's close friend Karen Richards, wife of the play's author Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), meets besotted fan Eve Harrington in the cold alley outside the stage door. Recognizing her from having passed her many times in the alley (as Eve claims to have seen every performance of Margo's current play, Aged in Wood), Karen takes her backstage to meet Margo. Eve tells the group gathered in Margo's dressing room—Karen and Lloyd, Margo's boyfriend Bill Sampson, a director who is eight years her junior, and Margo's maid Birdie—that she followed Margo's last theatrical tour to New York after seeing her in a play in San Francisco. She tells a moving story of growing up poor and losing her young husband in the recent war. Moved, Margo quickly befriends Eve, takes her into her home, and hires her as her assistant, leaving Birdie, who instinctively dislikes Eve, feeling put out.

 

Anne Baxter in wig and costume as Eve Harrington, Margo Channing's understudy
Eve is gradually shown to be working to supplant Margo, scheming to become her understudy behind her back, driving wedges between her and Lloyd and Bill, and conspiring with an unsuspecting Karen to cause Margo to miss a performance. Eve, knowing in advance that she will be the one appearing that night, invites the city's theatre critics to attend that evening's performance, which is a triumph for her. Eve tries to seduce Bill, but he rejects her. Following a scathing newspaper column by Addison, Margo and Bill reconcile, dine with the Richardses, and decide to marry. That same night at the restaurant, Eve blackmails Karen into telling Lloyd to give her the part of Cora, by threatening to tell Margo of Karen's role in Margo's missed performance. Before Karen can talk with Lloyd, Margo announces to everyone's surprise that she does not wish to play Cora and would prefer to continue in Aged in Wood. Eve secures the role and attempts to climb higher by using Addison, who is beginning to doubt her. Just before the premiere of her play at the Shubert in New Haven, Eve presents Addison with her next plan: to marry Lloyd, who, she claims, has come to her professing his love and his eagerness to leave his wife for her. Now, Eve exults, Lloyd will write brilliant plays showcasing her. Unseen but mentioned in dialogue, Karen has begun to suspect Eve as a threat to her own marriage to Lloyd, and so she and Addison meet for lunch and help each other put the pieces about Eve together. Addison is infuriated that Eve has attempted to use him and reveals that he knows that her back story is all lies. Her real name is Gertrude Slojinski, she was never married, and she had been paid to leave her hometown over an affair with her boss, a brewer in Wisconsin. Addison blackmails Eve, informing her that she will not be marrying Lloyd or anyone else; in exchange for Addison's silence, she now "belongs" to him.
The film returns to the opening scene in which Eve, now a shining Broadway star headed for Hollywood, is presented with her award. In her speech, she thanks Margo and Bill and Lloyd and Karen with characteristic effusion, while all four stare back at her coldly. After the awards ceremony, Eve hands her award to Addison, skips a party in her honor, and returns home alone, where she encounters a young fan—a high-school girl—who has slipped into her apartment and fallen asleep. The young girl professes her adoration and begins at once to insinuate herself into Eve's life, offering to pack Eve's trunk for Hollywood and being accepted. "Phoebe", as she calls herself, answers the door to find Addison returning with Eve's award. In a revealing moment, the young girl flirts daringly with the older man. Addison hands over the award to Phoebe and leaves without entering. Phoebe then lies to Eve, telling her it was only a cab driver who dropped off the award. While Eve rests in the other room, Phoebe dons Eve's elegant costume robe and poses in front of a multi-paned mirror, holding the award as if it were a crown. The mirrors transform Phoebe into multiple images of herself, and she bows regally, as if accepting the award to thunderous applause, while triumphant music plays.
Cast[edit]

 

 A young and then-unknown Marilyn Monroe as Miss Casswell in a scene with Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, and George SandersBette Davis as Margo Channing
Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington
George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
Celeste Holm as Karen Richards
Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards
Thelma Ritter as Birdie
Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian
Marilyn Monroe as Miss Casswell
Barbara Bates as Phoebe
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
The story of All About Eve originated in an anecdote related to Mary Orr by actress Elisabeth Bergner. While performing in The Two Mrs. Carrolls during 1943 and 1944, Bergner allowed a young fan to become part of her household and employed her as an assistant, but later regretted her generosity when the woman attempted to undermine her. Referring to her only as "the terrible girl", Bergner related the events to Orr, who used it as the basis for her short story "The Wisdom of Eve" (1946). In the story, Orr gives the girl a more ruthless character and allows her to succeed in stealing the older actress' career. Bergner later confirmed the basis of the story in her autobiography Bewundert viel, und viel gescholten (Greatly Admired and Greatly Scolded).
In 1949, Mankiewicz was considering a story about an aging actress and, upon reading "The Wisdom of Eve", felt the conniving girl would be a useful added element. He sent a memo to Darryl F. Zanuck saying it "fits in with an original idea [of mine] and can be combined. Superb starring role for Susan Hayward." Mankiewicz presented a film treatment of the combined stories under the title Best Performance. He changed the main character's name from Margola Cranston to Margo Channing and retained several of Orr's characters — Eve Harrington, Lloyd and Karen Richards, and Miss Casswell — while removing Margo Channing's husband completely and replacing him with a new character, Bill Sampson. The intention was to depict Channing in a new relationship and allow Eve Harrington to threaten both Channing's professional and personal lives. Mankiewicz also added the characters Addison DeWitt, Birdie Coonan, Max Fabian, and Phoebe.
Zanuck was enthusiastic and provided numerous suggestions for improving the screenplay. In some sections, he felt Mankiewicz's writing lacked subtlety or provided excessive detail. He suggested diluting Birdie Coonan's jealousy of Eve so the audience would not recognize Eve as a villain until much later in the story. Zanuck reduced the screenplay by about 50 pages and chose the title All About Eve from the opening scenes in which Addison DeWitt says he will soon tell "more of Eve ... All about Eve, in fact."[6]
Casting[edit]

 

 The principal cast of All About Eve. (Left to right) Gary Merrill, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm
Among the actresses originally considered to play Margo Channing were Mankiewicz's original inspiration, Susan Hayward, who was rejected by Zanuck as "too young", Marlene Dietrich, dismissed as "too German", and Gertrude Lawrence, who was ruled out of contention when her lawyer insisted that Lawrence not have to drink or smoke in the film, and that the script would be rewritten to allow her to sing a torch song.[7] Zanuck favored Barbara Stanwyck, but she was not available. Tallulah Bankhead and Ingrid Bergman were also considered, as was Joan Crawford,[8] who was already working on the film The Damned Don't Cry.
Eventually, the role went to Claudette Colbert, but when Colbert severely injured her back and was forced to withdraw shortly before filming began, Bette Davis was chosen to replace her.[7] Davis, who had recently ended an 18-year association with Warner Bros. after several poorly received films, immediately accepted the role after realizing it was one of the best she had ever read. Channing had originally been conceived as genteel and knowingly humorous, but with the casting of Davis, Mankiewicz revised the character to be more abrasive. Mankiewicz praised Davis for both her professionalism and the calibre of her performance, but in later years continued to discuss how Colbert would have played the role.
Anne Baxter had spent a decade in supporting roles and had won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Razor's Edge. She got the role of Eve Harrington after the first choice, Jeanne Crain, became pregnant. Crain was at the height of her popularity and had established a career playing likable heroines; Zanuck believed she lacked the "bitch virtuosity" required by the part, and audiences would not accept her as a deceitful character.
The role of Bill Sampson was originally intended for John Garfield or Ronald Reagan. Reagan's future wife Nancy Davis was considered for Karen Richards and Jose Ferrer for Addison DeWitt. Zsa Zsa Gabor actively sought the role of Phoebe without realizing the producers were considering her, along with Angela Lansbury, for Miss Casswell.[citation needed]
Mankiewicz greatly admired Thelma Ritter and wrote the character of Birdie Coonan for her after working with her on A Letter to Three Wives in 1949. As Coonan was the only one immediately suspicious of Eve Harrington, he was confident Ritter would contribute a shrewd characterisation casting doubt on Eve and providing a counterpoint to the more "theatrical" personalities of the other characters. Marilyn Monroe, relatively unknown at the time, was cast as Miss Casswell, referred to by DeWitt as a "graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art". Monroe got the part after a lobbying campaign by her agent,[9] despite Zanuck's initial antipathy and belief she was better suited to comedy.[citation needed] Angela Lansbury had been originally considered for the role.[9] The inexperienced Monroe was cowed by Bette Davis, and took 11 takes to complete the scene in the theatre lobby with the star; when Davis barked at her, Monroe left the set to vomit.[9] Smaller roles were filled by Gregory Ratoff as the producer Max Fabian, Barbara Bates as Phoebe, a young fan of Eve Harrington, and Walter Hampden as the master of ceremonies at an award presentation.[6]
Response[edit]
Critical reaction[edit]
All About Eve received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics upon its release on October 13, 1950 at a New York City premiere. The film's competitor, Sunset Boulevard, released the same year, drew similar praise, and the two were often favorably compared. Film critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times loved the film, stating it was "a fine Darryl Zanuck production, excellent music and on air ultra-class complete the superior satire".[10]
Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times praised the film, saying Bette Davis' character "veteran actress Margo Channing in All About Eve was her greatest role".[11] A collection of reviews from the film's release are stored on the website Rottentomatoes.com, and All About Eve has garnered 100% positive reviews there, making it "Certified fresh". Boxoffice.com stated that it "is a classic of the American cinema – to this day the quintessential depiction of ruthless ambition in the entertainment industry, with legendary performances from Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and George Sanders anchoring one of the very best films from one of Hollywood's very best Golden Era filmmakers: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It is a film that belongs on every collector's shelf – whether on video or DVD. It is a classic that deserves better than what Fox has given it."[12]
Thematic content[edit]
Critics and academics have delineated various themes in the film. Rebecca Flint Marx, in her Allmovie review, notes the antagonism that existed between Broadway and Hollywood at the time, stating that the "script summoned into existence a whole array of painfully recognizable theatre types, from the aging, egomaniacal grand dame to the outwardly docile, inwardly scheming ingenue to the powerful critic who reeks of malignant charm."[13] Roger Ebert, in his review in The Great Movies, says Eve Harrington is "a universal type", and focuses on the aging actress plot line, comparing the film to Sunset Boulevard.[14] Similarly, Marc Lee's 2006 review of the film for The Daily Telegraph describes a subtext "into the darker corners of show business, exposing its inherent ageism, especially when it comes to female stars."[15] Kathleen Woodward's 1999 book, Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Theories of Contemporary Culture), also discusses themes that appeared in many of the "aging actress" films of the 1950s and 1960s, including All About Eve. She reasons that Margo has three options: "To continue to work, she can perform the role of a young woman, one she no longer seems that interested in. She can take up the position of the angry bitch, the drama queen who holds court (the deliberate camp that Sontag finds in this film). Or she can accept her culture's gendered discourse of aging which figures her as in her moment of fading. Margo ultimately chooses the latter option, accepting her position as one of loss."[16]

 

 Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
Professor Robert J. Corber, who has studied homophobia within the cultural context of the Cold War in the United States, posits that the foundational theme in All About Eve is that the defense of the norms of heterosexuality, specifically in terms of patriarchal marriage, must be upheld in the face of challenges from female agency and homosexuality.[17] The nurturing heterosexual relationships of Margo and Bill and of Karen and Lloyd serve to contrast with the loveless relationship predation and sterile careerism of the homosexual characters, Eve and Addison.[18] Eve uses her physical femininity as a weapon to try to break up the marriages of both couples, and Addison's extreme cynicism serves as a model of Eve's future. Even film reviewer Kenneth Geist, despite being critical of the emphasis that Sam Staggs' book All About All About Eve places on the film's homosexual elements, nonetheless acknowledged that Eve's lesbianism seemed apparent; specifically, Geist states that "manifestations of Eve’s lesbianism are only twice briefly discernible".[19] Geist asserted that Mankiewicz "was highly contemptuous of both male and female homosexuals",[19] although Mankiewicz himself suggested otherwise in an interview in which he argued that society should "drop its vendetta against them".[20]

 

 George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
Homosexuality was often linked to Communism during the Cold War's Lavender Scare and critics have written about film's subtle, yet central, Cold War narrative. The fair amount of subtlety employed in All About Eve is seen as primarily being due to Production Code restrictions on the depiction of homosexuals in the media during this time.[17][21] However, notwithstanding those restrictions, Corber cites the film as but one example of a recurrent theme within American film of the homosexual as an emotionally bereft predator.[17] The documentary The Celluloid Closet also affirms this theme to which Corber refers, including citing numerous other film examples from the same Production Code time period in which All About Eve was made.[17][22]
Another important theme of the film, in terms of war politics and sexuality, involves the post-World War II pressure placed upon women to acquiesce agency. This pressure to resume "traditional" female roles is especially illustrated in this film in the contrast between Margo's mockery of Karen Richards for being a "happy little housewife" and her lengthy and inspired monologue, as a reformed woman later, about the virtuousness of marriage, including how a woman is not truly a woman without having a man beside her. This submissive and effeminate Margo is contrasted with the theatricality, combativeness, and egotism of the earlier career woman Margo, and the film's two homosexual characters. Margo quips that Eve should place her award "where her heart should be", and Eve is shown bereft at the end of the film. At dinner, the two married couples see Eve and Addison in a similarly negative light, with Margo wondering aloud what schemes Eve was constructing in her "feverish little brain". Additionally, Eve's utility as a personal assistant to Margo early in the film, which is a subtle construct of a same-sex intimate relationship, is decried by Birdie, the same working-class character who immediately detected the theatricality in Eve's story about her "husband". Birdie sees such agency as being unnatural, and the film contrasts its predatory nature ("studying you like a blueprint") with the love and warmth of her later reliance upon Bill. The pressure to acquiesce agency and more highly value patriarchy, following the return of men from the war, after having been shown propaganda promoting agency such as Rosie the Riveter and after having occupied traditionally male roles such as bomb-building factory worker, was deemed "the problem that has no name" by well-known feminist Betty Friedan.[23]
Despite what critics such as Corber have described as the homophobia pervasive in the movie,[17] All About Eve has long been a favored film among gay audiences, likely due to its campy overtones (in part due to the casting of Davis) and its general sophistication. Davis, who long had a strong gay fan base, expressed support for gay men in her 1972 interview with The Advocate.[24][25][26]
Awards and honors[edit]
Awards and nominations[edit]

Date of ceremony
Award
Category
Recipients and nominees
Result

February 22, 1951 British Academy Film Awards Best Film from any Source All About Eve Won
February 28, 1951 Golden Globe Awards Best Screenplay - Motion Picture Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Motion Picture All About Eve Nominated
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Bette Davis Nominated
Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz Nominated
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture George Sanders Nominated
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Thelma Ritter Nominated
March 29, 1951 Academy Awards[27] Best Picture All About Eve Won
Best Supporting Actor George Sanders Won
Best Costume Design - Black and white Edith Head, Charles LeMaire Won
Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Adapted Screenplay Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Sound Mixing Thomas Moulton Won
Best Actress in a Leading Role Anne Baxter Nominated
Bette Davis Nominated
Best Actress in a Supporting Role Celeste Holm Nominated
Thelma Ritter Nominated
Best Art Direction – Black-and-white George W. Davis, Lyle R. Wheeler and Thomas Little, Walter M. Scott Nominated
Best Cinematography – Black-and-white Milton R. Krasner Nominated
Best Film Editing Barbara McLean Nominated
Best Original Score Alfred Newman Nominated
April 3-20, 1951 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Bette Davis Won
Special Jury Prize All About Eve Won
Grand Prix du Festival International du Film All About Eve Nominated
May 27, 1951 Directors Guild of America Award Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
January 20, 1952 New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Film All About Eve Won
Best Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz Won
Best Actress Bette Davis Won

Later recognition and rankings[edit]
In 1990, All About Eve was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[28] The film received in 1997 a placement on the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame. The film also earns a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their 100 Years lists.

Year
Category
Nominee
Rank
1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies All About Eve 16
2003 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains Eve Harrington (Villain) 23
2005 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" 9
2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores All About Eve Nominated
2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) All About Eve 28
When AFI named Bette Davis # 2 on its list of the greatest female American screen legends, All About Eve was the film selected to highlight Davis' legendary career.
Sarah Siddons Award[edit]
The film opens with the image of a fictitious award trophy, described by DeWitt as the "highest honor our theater knows: the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement." The statuette is modelled after the famous painting of Siddons costumed as the tragic Muse by Joshua Reynolds, a copy of which hangs in the entrance of Margo's apartment and often visible during the party scene. In 1952, a small group of distinguished Chicago theater-goers began to give an award with that name, which was sculpted to look like the one used in the film. It has been given annually, with past honorees including Bette Davis and Celeste Holm.
Adaptations[edit]
The first radio adaptation was broadcast on the Lux Radio Theatre on NBC on October 1, 1951 starring Bette Davis, Gary Merrill and Anne Baxter.[29]
A second radio version of All About Eve starring Tallulah Bankhead as Margo Channing was presented on NBC's The Big Show by the Theatre Guild of the Air on November 16, 1952.[30] The production is notable in that Mary Orr, the writer of the original short story that formed the basis for the original film, played the role of Karen Richards. The cast also featured Alan Hewitt as Addison DeWitt (who narrated), Beatrice Pearson as Eve Harrington, Don Briggs as Lloyd Richards, Kevin McCarthy as Bill Samson, Florence Robinson as Birdie Coonan, and Stefan Schnabel as Max Fabian.[30]
In 1970, All About Eve was the inspiration for the stage musical Applause, with book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. The original production starred Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing, and it won the Tony Award for Best Musical that season. It ran for four previews and 896 performances at the Palace Theatre on Broadway. After Bacall left the production, she was replaced by Anne Baxter in the role of Margo Channing.
In popular culture[edit]
The plot of the film has been used numerous times, frequently as an outright homage to the film, with one notable example being a 1974 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, "A New Sue Ann". In the episode, the character of Sue Ann Nivens (Betty White), hostess of a popular local cooking show, hires a young, pretty and very eager fan as her apprentice and assistant, but the neophyte quickly begins to sabotage her mentor, in an attempt to replace her as host of the show. Sue Ann, however, unlike Margo Channing, prevails in the end, countering the young woman's attempts to steal her success and sending her on her way.[31]
The English rock band of the same name took their name from the film.[32]
A 2008 episode of The Simpsons, "All About Lisa", is influenced by this film. In the episode, Lisa Simpson becomes Krusty the Clown's assistant, eventually taking his place on television and receiving an entertainment award.[33]
Pedro Almodóvar's 1999 Academy Award-winning Spanish language film, Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother), has elements similar to those found in All About Eve. The title of the film itself is an homage to the 1950 film. In the first scene, the character of Manuela and her son, Esteban, are watching a dubbed version of the film on television when the film is introduced as "Eve Unveiled". Esteban comments that the film should be called "Todo Sobre Eva" ("All About Eva"). Later in the scene, he begins writing about his mother in his notebook and calls the piece "Todo sobre Eva". Additionally, Manuela replaces Nina Cruz as Stella for a night in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire, leading a furious Nina to accuse her of learning the part "just like Eve Harrington!"
In a season 3 episode of Gossip Girl, titled "Enough About Eve", Blair Waldorf has a dream where she is Margo Channing.
In the fifth season of The L Word, a fan becomes Jenny Shecter's assistant while she is directing a movie; later the fan blackmails the movie studio into letting her direct and she proceeds to take over Jenny's life.
In the second season of Glee, Kurt Hummel calls his fellow glee club member Santana Lopez "a Latina Eve Harrington", after learning she is blackmailing a closeted jock into becoming her "beard" and running mate for Prom Queen and King.
In the first season of Will & Grace, Grace becomes dependent on a maid to give her a confidence boost during a design competition. This prompts her drunken assistant Karen to suspect a plot and she confronts the maid, exclaiming "I've seen 'All About Eve'. Poooor Eve!"
In the pilot episode of Political Animals, when Susan suspects Georgia, a fellow reporter, has a crush on her boyfriend and is attempting to outshine her at the newspaper, she says, "If Eve Harrington were an actual person today, she would look like Georgia. She would bake cupcakes, and she would have a blog."
In the third season of Gilligan's Island, the episode "All About Eva" concerns a character coming on the island and taking over Ginger's persona, with both roles played by actress Tina Louise.
In the fifth season of Quantum Leap, the plot of the episode "Goodbye Norma Jean" mirrors that of All About Eve. In it, Sam Beckett leaps into Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur and finds himself pitted against an aspiring actress who is trying to steal Monroe's part for the film The Misfits. Sam succeeds in stopping Monroe's rival, and she rightfully takes her place as Clark Gable's leading lady.[34][35]
See also[edit]
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "ALL ABOUT EVE (A)". British Board of Film Classification. October 2, 1950. Retrieved December 6, 2014.
2.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 245, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
3.Jump up ^ Rudy Behlmer, Behind the Scenes, Samuel French, 1990 p 208
4.Jump up ^ Box Office Information for All About Eve. The Numbers. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
5.Jump up ^ "America's Greatest Movies" AFI.com. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
6.^ Jump up to: a b Staggs, Sam: All About "All About Eve". St Martin's Press, 2001. ISBN 0-312-27315-0
7.^ Jump up to: a b TCM "Notes" on TCM.com
8.Jump up ^ Legendaryjoancrawford.com
9.^ Jump up to: a b c Miller, Frank "All About Eve" on TCM.com
10.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley. "Movie Review - All About Eve" New York Times (October 14, 1950)
11.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger "All About Eve (1950)" Chicago Sun-Times (11 June 2000)
12.Jump up ^ Boxoffice.com
13.Jump up ^ Marx, Rebecca Flint. All About Eve review on AllMovie.com. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
14.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger. "All About Eve (1950)", "Great Movies by Roger Ebert" on rogerebert.com, 6-11-2000.
15.Jump up ^ Lee, Marc. "Must-have movies: All About Eve (1950)" The Daily Telegraph (7 July 2006). Retrieved 8 August 2009.
16.Jump up ^ Woodward, Kathleen M. Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Theories of Contemporary Culture) Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 242. ISBN 0-253-21236-7
17.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Field, Douglas. "Gender and Sexuality – All about the Subversive Femme – Cold War Homophobia in All About Eve" in American Cold War Culture, Edinburgh University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-7486-1923-2, ISBN 978-0-7486-1923-8
18.Jump up ^ White, Patricia. "A Star is Beaten" in unInvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability, Indiana University Press, 1999. p. 202-12. ISBN 0253213452, ISBN 9780253213457
19.^ Jump up to: a b Geist, Kenneth. "All About 'All About Eve'". Films in Review, 2000
20.Jump up ^ Mankiewicz, Joseph L. and Dauth, Brian. Joseph L. Mankiewicz: Mankiewicz University Press of Mississippi, 2008)
21.Jump up ^ Corber, Robert. "Cold War Femme: Lesbian Visibility In ... All About Eve". GLQ Journal Duke University, 2005 11(1):1-22; doi:10.1215/10642684-11-1-1
22.Jump up ^ Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet. New York: Harper & Row, 1981 ISBN 0-06-090871-8, ISBN 978-0-06-090871-3
23.Jump up ^ Hunt, Heather. What Happened To Rosie The Riveter?, University of Maryland, 1999
24.Jump up ^ Burston, Paul. "She’s better, she’s Bette", The Times of London (22 November 2007)
25.Jump up ^ Cleto, Fabio. Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject, University of Michigan Press, 1999, ISBN 0-472-06722-2
26.Jump up ^ Sikov, Ed. Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. New York: Macmillan, 2007, ISBN 0-8050-7548-8
27.Jump up ^ "The 23rd Academy Awards (1951) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved August 10, 2014.
28.Jump up ^ "National Film Registry". Library of Congress, accessed October 28, 2011.
29.Jump up ^ Genericradio.com
30.^ Jump up to: a b Ironically, Bette Davis played three roles that had been originated on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead (in Dark Victory, Reflected Glory and The Little Foxes) – Bankhead and Davis were considered to be somewhat similar in style, with Davis a more disciplined performer who understood film better than Bankhead. Source: liner notes, All About Eve, Moving Finger LP MF002
31.Jump up ^ "A New Sue Ann" Starpulse.com
32.Jump up ^ Strong, Martin C. "All About Eve biography". The Great Rock Bible. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
33.Jump up ^ The Simpsons on Fox TVGuide.com. Retrieved 18 April 2009.
34.Jump up ^ De Vito, John; Tropea, Frank (2007). The Immortal Marilyn. United States: Scarecrow Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-8108-5866-4. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
35.Jump up ^ "Quantum Leap Season 5 Episode 18 Goodbye Norma Jean". TV.com. TV Guide. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to All About Eve.
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: All About Eve
All About Eve at the Internet Movie Database
All About Eve at the TCM Movie Database
All About Eve at Rotten Tomatoes
All About Eve Script from Internet Movie Script Database
All About Eve on Filmsite.org
Literature on All About Eve
Streaming audioAll About Eve on Lux Radio Theater: October 1, 1951
All About Eve on Theater Guild on the Air: November 16, 1952


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Anecdotes of Destiny

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 First US edition
Anecdotes of Destiny is a collection of tales by Danish author Karen Blixen. It was the last work put out during Karen Blixen's lifetime; it was published in Denmark on October 12, 1958. It includes the story "Babette's Feast", which was adapted into a film of the same name.
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Anecdotes of Destiny

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Babette's Feast (short story))
Jump to: navigation, search


 

 First US edition
Anecdotes of Destiny is a collection of tales by Danish author Karen Blixen. It was the last work put out during Karen Blixen's lifetime; it was published in Denmark on October 12, 1958. It includes the story "Babette's Feast", which was adapted into a film of the same name.
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Babette's Feast

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For the 1958 short story by Karen Blixen, see Babette's Feast (short story).

Babette's Feast
Babettesgæstebudposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
Gabriel Axel
Produced by
Just Betzer
Bo Christensen
Benni Korzen
 Pernille Siesbye
Screenplay by
Gabriel Axel
Story by
Karen Blixen
Starring
Stephane Audran
Birgitte Federspiel
Bodil Kjer
Narrated by
Ghita Nørby
Music by
Per Nørgård
Cinematography
Henning Kristiansen
Edited by
Finn Henriksen

Production
 company

Nordisk Film
 

Release dates

28 August 1987
 

Running time
 102 minutes
Country
Denmark
Language
Danish
 Swedish
 French
Box office
$4.4 million (US)[1]
Babette's Feast (Danish: Babettes gæstebud) is a 1987 Danish drama film directed by Gabriel Axel. The film's screenplay was written by Axel based on the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, Babette's Feast was the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[2] The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Location
3.2 Casting
4 Menu
5 Reception
6 In pop culture
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

Plot[edit]
The elderly and pious Protestant sisters Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer) live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in 19th-century Denmark. Their father was a pastor who founded his own Pietistic conventicle. With their father now dead and the austere sect drawing no new converts, the aging sisters preside over a dwindling congregation of white-haired believers.
The story flashes back 49 years, showing the sisters in their youth. The beautiful girls have many suitors, but their father rejects them all, and indeed derides marriage. Each daughter is courted by an impassioned suitor visiting Jutland – Martine by a charming young Swedish cavalry officer, Lorens Löwenhielm, and Philippa by a star baritone, Achille Papin, from the Paris opera, on hiatus to the silence of the coast. Both sisters decide to stay with their father and spurn any life away from Jutland.
Thirty five years later, Babette Hersant (Stéphane Audran) appears at their door. She carries only a letter from Papin, explaining that she is a refugee from counter-revolutionary bloodshed in Paris, and recommending her as a housekeeper. The sisters cannot afford to take Babette in, but she offers to work for free. Babette serves as their cook for the next 14 years, producing bland meals typical of the abstemious nature of the congregation. Her only link to her former life is a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year. One day, she wins the lottery of 10,000 francs. Instead of using the money to return to Paris and her lost lifestyle, she decides to spend it preparing a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation on the occasion of the founding pastor's hundredth birthday. More than just a feast, the meal is an outpouring of Babette's appreciation, an act of self-sacrifice; Babette tells no one that she is spending her entire winnings on the meal.
The sisters accept both Babette's meal and her offer to pay for the creation of a "real French dinner". Babette arranges for her nephew, a merchant, to go to Paris and gather the supplies for the feast. The ingredients are plentiful, sumptuous and exotic, and their arrival causes much discussion among the villagers. As the various never-before-seen ingredients arrive, and preparations commence, the sisters begin to worry that the meal will become a sin of sensual luxury, if not some form of devilry. In a hasty conference, the sisters and the congregation agree to eat the meal, but to forego speaking of any pleasure in it, and to make no mention of the food during the dinner.
Martine's former suitor, Lorens, now a famous general married to a member of the Queen's court, comes as the guest of his aunt, the local lady of the manor and a member of the old pastor's congregation. He is unaware of the other guests' austere plans, and as a man of the world and former attaché in Paris, he is the only person at the table qualified to comment on the meal. He regales the guests with abundant information about the extraordinary food and drink, comparing it to a meal he enjoyed years earlier at the famous "Café Anglais" in Paris. Although the other celebrants refuse to comment on the earthly pleasures of their meal, Babette's gifts breaks down their distrust and superstitions, elevating them physically and spiritually. Old wrongs are forgotten, ancient loves are rekindled, and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table.
The sisters assume that Babette will now return to Paris. However, when she tells them that all of her money is gone and that she is not going anywhere, the sisters are aghast. Babette then reveals that she was formerly the head chef of the Café Anglais, and tells them that dinner for 12 there has a price of 10,000 francs. Martine tearfully says, "Now you will be poor the rest of your life", to which Babette replies, "An artist is never poor."
Cast[edit]
Stéphane Audran as Babette Hersant
Bodil Kjer as Filippa
Birgitte Federspiel as Martine
Jarl Kulle as General Lorens Löwenhielm
Jean-Philippe Lafont as Achille Papin
Bibi Andersson as Swedish courtier
Ghita Nørby as Narrator
Asta Esper Hagen Andersen as Anna
Thomas Antoni as Swedish lieutenant
Gert Bastian as Poor Man
Viggo Bentzon as Fisherman in Rowboat
Vibeke Hastrup as Young Martine
Therese Hojgaard Christensen as Martha
Pouel Kern as The Minister
Cay Kristiansen as Poul
Production[edit]
Location[edit]
Blixen's original story takes place in the Norwegian port town of Berlevåg, a setting of multicolored wood houses on a long fjord.[4] However, when Axel researched locations in Norway, he found the setting was too idyllic and resembled a "beautiful tourist brochure."[5] He shifted the location to the flat windswept coast of western Jutland and asked his set designer, Sven Wichmann, to build a small grey village resembling a one-horse town. Mårup Church, a plain Romanesque church built around 1250 on a remote seaside cliff near the village of Lønstrup, was used as a backdrop.[6]
Axel altered the setting from a ship-filled harbor to fisherman's rowboats on a beach. He said the changes would highlight Blixen's vision of Babette's life in near complete exile.[7]

"There is a lot that works in writing, but when translated to pictures, it doesn't give at all the same impression or feeling. All the changes I undertook, I did to actually be faithful to Karen Blixen." – Gabriel Axel[7]
Casting[edit]
The Nordisk Film production company suggested the cast of Babette's Feast should include only Danish actors to reduce production costs. However, Axel wanted Danish, Swedish and French actors to play the roles for the sake of authenticity. Axel was supported by the Danish Film Institute's consultant, Claes Kastholm Hansen, who also agreed the cast should include international stars.[8] The title character of Babette was initially offered to Catherine Deneuve. Deneuve was interested in the part but was concerned because she had been criticized in her past attempts to depart from her usual sophisticated woman roles.[9] While Deneuve deliberated for a day, Axel met with French actress Stéphane Audran. Axel remembered Audran from her roles in Claude Chabrol's films Violette Nozière (1978) and Poulet au vinaigre (1985). When Axel asked Chabrol (her former husband) about Audran's suitability, Chabol said Audran was the archetype of Babette.[10] Axel gave the script to Audran, told her that Deneuve was contemplating the role, and asked her if she might be able to respond before the next day. Audran called two hours later and said she wanted the role. The following day, Deneuve declined and Audran was officially cast.[11]
Two other major parts were the characters of the elderly maiden sisters, Phillipa and Martine. Phillipa, the once-promising singer, was portrayed by Bodil Kjer, considered the first lady of Danish theater and namesake of the Bodil Award.[12] Birgitte Federspiel, best known for Carl Dreyer's 1955 classic film Ordet, was cast as the staid, love forlorn, Martine.
The role of the Swedish General Lorens Löwenhielm, the former suitor of Martine, was accepted by Jarl Kulle and the Swedish Court Lady by Bibi Andersson. Both had achieved international recognition as two of Ingmar Bergman's favorite actors, appearing in many of his films.[13][14]
The group of elderly villagers was composed of Danish actors, many of whom were well known for their roles in the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer. These included Lisbeth Movin as the Old Widow, Preben Lerdorff Rye as the Captain, Axel Strøbye as the Driver, Bendt Rothe as Old Nielsen and Ebbe Rode as Christopher.
The popular Danish actress Ghita Nørby was cast as the film's narrator. Although production consultants complained to Axel that the use of a narrator was too old-fashioned, Axel was adamant about using one. He said it was not about being old-fashioned but only about the need: "If there is need for a narrator, then one uses one."[7]
Menu[edit]
The seven-course menu in the film consisted of "Potage à la Tortue" (turtle soup) served with Amontillado sherry; "Blinis Demidoff" (buckwheat cakes with caviar and sour cream) served with Veuve Cliquot champagne; "Cailles en Sarcophage" (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) served with Clos de Vougeot Pinot Noir; an endive salad; "Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée" (rum sponge cake with figs and candied cherries) served with champagne; assorted cheeses and fruits served with sauterne; and coffee with Louis XIII de Rémy Martin cognac.[15]
Reception[edit]
Upon its release in 1987, Babette's Feast received overwhelmingly positive reviews.[16] The film won the 1987 Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.[17] It also received the BAFTA Film Award for Best Film Not in the English Language. In Denmark, it won both the Bodil and Robert awards for Best Danish Film of the Year. The film was nominated and/or won several other awards including a Golden Globe nomination, the Grand Prix (Belgian Film Critics Association) award and a Cannes Film Festival special prize.
As of October 2014, the film maintained a 96% approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate review website.[18]
In pop culture[edit]
Pope Francis identified Babette's Feast as his favorite film.[19]
After the film's release, several restaurants offered recreations of the film's menu.[20]
In The Archers, Jennifer Aldridge hosted a party to celebrate the installation of her new kitchen where the food was inspired by Babette's Feast.[21]
See also[edit]
List of submissions to the 60th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
List of Danish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Babettes gæstebud (Babette's Feast) at Box Office Mojo
2.Jump up ^ "Babette's gæstebud". Danish Film Institute.
3.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Babette's Feast". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
4.Jump up ^ Karen Blixen, Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard, "The Diver," "Babette's Feast," "Tempests," "The Immortal Story," "The Ring" (New York: Random House; London: Michael Joseph, 1958); Skæbne-Anekdoter (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1960)
5.Jump up ^ Mørch, Karin, Gabriel's Gæstebud: Portrait af en Filmmager, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, (2008) p.403
6.Jump up ^ Nielsen, Bent (30 September 2008). "Kirken på kanten synger på sidste vers" [Church on the edge sings the last verse]. Kristeligt Dagblad.
7.^ Jump up to: a b c (Mørch 2008, p. 403) translated from "Der er meget, der fungerer på skrift, men når det blive overført til billeder, giver det slet ikke samme indtryk eller følelse. Alle de ændringer, jeg foretog, gjorde jeg faktisk for at være tro mod Karen Blixens."
8.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 410)
9.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 410)
10.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 411)
11.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 412)
12.Jump up ^ Piil, Morten, Bodil Kjer Danske Filmskuespillere, Gyldendal, (2001), pp 230–235
13.Jump up ^ "Jarl Kulle", Filmography, Ingmar Bergman Foundation, ingmarbergman.se, retrieved 28-05-2009
14.Jump up ^ "Bibi Andersson", Filmography, Ingmar Bergman Foundation, ingmarbergman.se, retrieved 28-05-2009
15.Jump up ^ Heiter, Celeste (2012). A Culinary Homage to Babette's Feast. Love Bites: Romantic Dinners for Two. lovebitescookbooks.com. p. 1. Retrieved 6-10-14. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
16.Jump up ^ Wigley, Samuel (3 April 2014). "Then and now: Babette’s Feast reviewed". Film Forever. British Film Institute. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
17.Jump up ^ "The 60th Academy Awards (1988) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
18.Jump up ^ "Babettes Gaestebud (Babette's Feast) (1987)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster IOnc. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
19.Jump up ^ Oppenheimer, Mark (April 26, 2013). "Pope Francis Has a Few Words in Support of Leisure". New York Times.
20.Jump up ^ Fabricant, Florence (March 2, 1988). "In 'Babette,' A Great Feast For the Palate And the Eye". New York Times. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
21.Jump up ^ "15 August 2014". The Archers. BBC Radio 4.
Further reading[edit]
Curry, Thomas J. (2012). "Babette's Feast and the Goodness of God". Journal of Religion & Film 16 (2). Archived from the original on December 8, 2012.
Goodwin, Sarah Webster (1990). "Knowing better: feminism and utopian discourse in Pride and Prejudice, Villette, and Babette's feast". In Jones, Libby Falk; Goodwin, Sarah McKim Webster. Feminism, Utopia, and Narrative. Tennessee Studies in Literature. pp. 1–20. ISBN 978-0-87049-636-3.
Podles, Mary Elizabeth (1992). "Babette's Feast: Feasting with Lutherans". The Antioch Review 50 (3): 551–65. JSTOR 4612569.
Schuler, Jean (1997). "Kierkegaard at Babette's Feast: The Return to the Finite". Journal of Religion and Film 1 (2).
Wright, Wendy M. (1997). "Babette's Feast: A Religious Film". Journal of Religion and Film 1 (2).
External links[edit]
Babette's Feast at the Internet Movie Database
Babette's Feast at AllMovie
Babette's Feast at Box Office Mojo
Babette's Feast at Rotten Tomatoes
An extensive collection of links about Babette's Feast at KarenBlixen.com
Babettes gæstebud at the Danish Film Institute (in Danish)
Voted #3 on The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films (2010)


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Academy Award for Foreign Language Film Winners

 












 























 




























 

















 


 


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London Film Critics' Circle Foreign Language Film of the Year

 




































 


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Films directed by Gabriel Axel

 
























 


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Categories: 1987 films
1980s romantic drama films
Danish films
Danish drama films
Danish-language films
Swedish-language films
French-language films
Films directed by Gabriel Axel
Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
Cooking films
Films based on works by Karen Blixen
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Films set in Denmark
Films set in the 19th century
Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA Award winners
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Babette's Feast

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For the 1958 short story by Karen Blixen, see Babette's Feast (short story).

Babette's Feast
Babettesgæstebudposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
Gabriel Axel
Produced by
Just Betzer
Bo Christensen
Benni Korzen
 Pernille Siesbye
Screenplay by
Gabriel Axel
Story by
Karen Blixen
Starring
Stephane Audran
Birgitte Federspiel
Bodil Kjer
Narrated by
Ghita Nørby
Music by
Per Nørgård
Cinematography
Henning Kristiansen
Edited by
Finn Henriksen

Production
 company

Nordisk Film
 

Release dates

28 August 1987
 

Running time
 102 minutes
Country
Denmark
Language
Danish
 Swedish
 French
Box office
$4.4 million (US)[1]
Babette's Feast (Danish: Babettes gæstebud) is a 1987 Danish drama film directed by Gabriel Axel. The film's screenplay was written by Axel based on the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, Babette's Feast was the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[2] The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[3]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Location
3.2 Casting
4 Menu
5 Reception
6 In pop culture
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

Plot[edit]
The elderly and pious Protestant sisters Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer) live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in 19th-century Denmark. Their father was a pastor who founded his own Pietistic conventicle. With their father now dead and the austere sect drawing no new converts, the aging sisters preside over a dwindling congregation of white-haired believers.
The story flashes back 49 years, showing the sisters in their youth. The beautiful girls have many suitors, but their father rejects them all, and indeed derides marriage. Each daughter is courted by an impassioned suitor visiting Jutland – Martine by a charming young Swedish cavalry officer, Lorens Löwenhielm, and Philippa by a star baritone, Achille Papin, from the Paris opera, on hiatus to the silence of the coast. Both sisters decide to stay with their father and spurn any life away from Jutland.
Thirty five years later, Babette Hersant (Stéphane Audran) appears at their door. She carries only a letter from Papin, explaining that she is a refugee from counter-revolutionary bloodshed in Paris, and recommending her as a housekeeper. The sisters cannot afford to take Babette in, but she offers to work for free. Babette serves as their cook for the next 14 years, producing bland meals typical of the abstemious nature of the congregation. Her only link to her former life is a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year. One day, she wins the lottery of 10,000 francs. Instead of using the money to return to Paris and her lost lifestyle, she decides to spend it preparing a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation on the occasion of the founding pastor's hundredth birthday. More than just a feast, the meal is an outpouring of Babette's appreciation, an act of self-sacrifice; Babette tells no one that she is spending her entire winnings on the meal.
The sisters accept both Babette's meal and her offer to pay for the creation of a "real French dinner". Babette arranges for her nephew, a merchant, to go to Paris and gather the supplies for the feast. The ingredients are plentiful, sumptuous and exotic, and their arrival causes much discussion among the villagers. As the various never-before-seen ingredients arrive, and preparations commence, the sisters begin to worry that the meal will become a sin of sensual luxury, if not some form of devilry. In a hasty conference, the sisters and the congregation agree to eat the meal, but to forego speaking of any pleasure in it, and to make no mention of the food during the dinner.
Martine's former suitor, Lorens, now a famous general married to a member of the Queen's court, comes as the guest of his aunt, the local lady of the manor and a member of the old pastor's congregation. He is unaware of the other guests' austere plans, and as a man of the world and former attaché in Paris, he is the only person at the table qualified to comment on the meal. He regales the guests with abundant information about the extraordinary food and drink, comparing it to a meal he enjoyed years earlier at the famous "Café Anglais" in Paris. Although the other celebrants refuse to comment on the earthly pleasures of their meal, Babette's gifts breaks down their distrust and superstitions, elevating them physically and spiritually. Old wrongs are forgotten, ancient loves are rekindled, and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table.
The sisters assume that Babette will now return to Paris. However, when she tells them that all of her money is gone and that she is not going anywhere, the sisters are aghast. Babette then reveals that she was formerly the head chef of the Café Anglais, and tells them that dinner for 12 there has a price of 10,000 francs. Martine tearfully says, "Now you will be poor the rest of your life", to which Babette replies, "An artist is never poor."
Cast[edit]
Stéphane Audran as Babette Hersant
Bodil Kjer as Filippa
Birgitte Federspiel as Martine
Jarl Kulle as General Lorens Löwenhielm
Jean-Philippe Lafont as Achille Papin
Bibi Andersson as Swedish courtier
Ghita Nørby as Narrator
Asta Esper Hagen Andersen as Anna
Thomas Antoni as Swedish lieutenant
Gert Bastian as Poor Man
Viggo Bentzon as Fisherman in Rowboat
Vibeke Hastrup as Young Martine
Therese Hojgaard Christensen as Martha
Pouel Kern as The Minister
Cay Kristiansen as Poul
Production[edit]
Location[edit]
Blixen's original story takes place in the Norwegian port town of Berlevåg, a setting of multicolored wood houses on a long fjord.[4] However, when Axel researched locations in Norway, he found the setting was too idyllic and resembled a "beautiful tourist brochure."[5] He shifted the location to the flat windswept coast of western Jutland and asked his set designer, Sven Wichmann, to build a small grey village resembling a one-horse town. Mårup Church, a plain Romanesque church built around 1250 on a remote seaside cliff near the village of Lønstrup, was used as a backdrop.[6]
Axel altered the setting from a ship-filled harbor to fisherman's rowboats on a beach. He said the changes would highlight Blixen's vision of Babette's life in near complete exile.[7]

"There is a lot that works in writing, but when translated to pictures, it doesn't give at all the same impression or feeling. All the changes I undertook, I did to actually be faithful to Karen Blixen." – Gabriel Axel[7]
Casting[edit]
The Nordisk Film production company suggested the cast of Babette's Feast should include only Danish actors to reduce production costs. However, Axel wanted Danish, Swedish and French actors to play the roles for the sake of authenticity. Axel was supported by the Danish Film Institute's consultant, Claes Kastholm Hansen, who also agreed the cast should include international stars.[8] The title character of Babette was initially offered to Catherine Deneuve. Deneuve was interested in the part but was concerned because she had been criticized in her past attempts to depart from her usual sophisticated woman roles.[9] While Deneuve deliberated for a day, Axel met with French actress Stéphane Audran. Axel remembered Audran from her roles in Claude Chabrol's films Violette Nozière (1978) and Poulet au vinaigre (1985). When Axel asked Chabrol (her former husband) about Audran's suitability, Chabol said Audran was the archetype of Babette.[10] Axel gave the script to Audran, told her that Deneuve was contemplating the role, and asked her if she might be able to respond before the next day. Audran called two hours later and said she wanted the role. The following day, Deneuve declined and Audran was officially cast.[11]
Two other major parts were the characters of the elderly maiden sisters, Phillipa and Martine. Phillipa, the once-promising singer, was portrayed by Bodil Kjer, considered the first lady of Danish theater and namesake of the Bodil Award.[12] Birgitte Federspiel, best known for Carl Dreyer's 1955 classic film Ordet, was cast as the staid, love forlorn, Martine.
The role of the Swedish General Lorens Löwenhielm, the former suitor of Martine, was accepted by Jarl Kulle and the Swedish Court Lady by Bibi Andersson. Both had achieved international recognition as two of Ingmar Bergman's favorite actors, appearing in many of his films.[13][14]
The group of elderly villagers was composed of Danish actors, many of whom were well known for their roles in the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer. These included Lisbeth Movin as the Old Widow, Preben Lerdorff Rye as the Captain, Axel Strøbye as the Driver, Bendt Rothe as Old Nielsen and Ebbe Rode as Christopher.
The popular Danish actress Ghita Nørby was cast as the film's narrator. Although production consultants complained to Axel that the use of a narrator was too old-fashioned, Axel was adamant about using one. He said it was not about being old-fashioned but only about the need: "If there is need for a narrator, then one uses one."[7]
Menu[edit]
The seven-course menu in the film consisted of "Potage à la Tortue" (turtle soup) served with Amontillado sherry; "Blinis Demidoff" (buckwheat cakes with caviar and sour cream) served with Veuve Cliquot champagne; "Cailles en Sarcophage" (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) served with Clos de Vougeot Pinot Noir; an endive salad; "Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée" (rum sponge cake with figs and candied cherries) served with champagne; assorted cheeses and fruits served with sauterne; and coffee with Louis XIII de Rémy Martin cognac.[15]
Reception[edit]
Upon its release in 1987, Babette's Feast received overwhelmingly positive reviews.[16] The film won the 1987 Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.[17] It also received the BAFTA Film Award for Best Film Not in the English Language. In Denmark, it won both the Bodil and Robert awards for Best Danish Film of the Year. The film was nominated and/or won several other awards including a Golden Globe nomination, the Grand Prix (Belgian Film Critics Association) award and a Cannes Film Festival special prize.
As of October 2014, the film maintained a 96% approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate review website.[18]
In pop culture[edit]
Pope Francis identified Babette's Feast as his favorite film.[19]
After the film's release, several restaurants offered recreations of the film's menu.[20]
In The Archers, Jennifer Aldridge hosted a party to celebrate the installation of her new kitchen where the food was inspired by Babette's Feast.[21]
See also[edit]
List of submissions to the 60th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
List of Danish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Babettes gæstebud (Babette's Feast) at Box Office Mojo
2.Jump up ^ "Babette's gæstebud". Danish Film Institute.
3.Jump up ^ "Festival de Cannes: Babette's Feast". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
4.Jump up ^ Karen Blixen, Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard, "The Diver," "Babette's Feast," "Tempests," "The Immortal Story," "The Ring" (New York: Random House; London: Michael Joseph, 1958); Skæbne-Anekdoter (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1960)
5.Jump up ^ Mørch, Karin, Gabriel's Gæstebud: Portrait af en Filmmager, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, (2008) p.403
6.Jump up ^ Nielsen, Bent (30 September 2008). "Kirken på kanten synger på sidste vers" [Church on the edge sings the last verse]. Kristeligt Dagblad.
7.^ Jump up to: a b c (Mørch 2008, p. 403) translated from "Der er meget, der fungerer på skrift, men når det blive overført til billeder, giver det slet ikke samme indtryk eller følelse. Alle de ændringer, jeg foretog, gjorde jeg faktisk for at være tro mod Karen Blixens."
8.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 410)
9.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 410)
10.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 411)
11.Jump up ^ (Mørch 2008, p. 412)
12.Jump up ^ Piil, Morten, Bodil Kjer Danske Filmskuespillere, Gyldendal, (2001), pp 230–235
13.Jump up ^ "Jarl Kulle", Filmography, Ingmar Bergman Foundation, ingmarbergman.se, retrieved 28-05-2009
14.Jump up ^ "Bibi Andersson", Filmography, Ingmar Bergman Foundation, ingmarbergman.se, retrieved 28-05-2009
15.Jump up ^ Heiter, Celeste (2012). A Culinary Homage to Babette's Feast. Love Bites: Romantic Dinners for Two. lovebitescookbooks.com. p. 1. Retrieved 6-10-14. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
16.Jump up ^ Wigley, Samuel (3 April 2014). "Then and now: Babette’s Feast reviewed". Film Forever. British Film Institute. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
17.Jump up ^ "The 60th Academy Awards (1988) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
18.Jump up ^ "Babettes Gaestebud (Babette's Feast) (1987)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster IOnc. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
19.Jump up ^ Oppenheimer, Mark (April 26, 2013). "Pope Francis Has a Few Words in Support of Leisure". New York Times.
20.Jump up ^ Fabricant, Florence (March 2, 1988). "In 'Babette,' A Great Feast For the Palate And the Eye". New York Times. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
21.Jump up ^ "15 August 2014". The Archers. BBC Radio 4.
Further reading[edit]
Curry, Thomas J. (2012). "Babette's Feast and the Goodness of God". Journal of Religion & Film 16 (2). Archived from the original on December 8, 2012.
Goodwin, Sarah Webster (1990). "Knowing better: feminism and utopian discourse in Pride and Prejudice, Villette, and Babette's feast". In Jones, Libby Falk; Goodwin, Sarah McKim Webster. Feminism, Utopia, and Narrative. Tennessee Studies in Literature. pp. 1–20. ISBN 978-0-87049-636-3.
Podles, Mary Elizabeth (1992). "Babette's Feast: Feasting with Lutherans". The Antioch Review 50 (3): 551–65. JSTOR 4612569.
Schuler, Jean (1997). "Kierkegaard at Babette's Feast: The Return to the Finite". Journal of Religion and Film 1 (2).
Wright, Wendy M. (1997). "Babette's Feast: A Religious Film". Journal of Religion and Film 1 (2).
External links[edit]
Babette's Feast at the Internet Movie Database
Babette's Feast at AllMovie
Babette's Feast at Box Office Mojo
Babette's Feast at Rotten Tomatoes
An extensive collection of links about Babette's Feast at KarenBlixen.com
Babettes gæstebud at the Danish Film Institute (in Danish)
Voted #3 on The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films (2010)


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Academy Award for Foreign Language Film Winners

 












 























 




























 

















 


 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language

 











 
































 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
London Film Critics' Circle Foreign Language Film of the Year

 




































 


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Gabriel Axel

 
























 


Authority control
VIAF: 227036338 ·
 GND: 7696791-8
 

  


Categories: 1987 films
1980s romantic drama films
Danish films
Danish drama films
Danish-language films
Swedish-language films
French-language films
Films directed by Gabriel Axel
Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
Cooking films
Films based on works by Karen Blixen
Films shot in Denmark
Films set in Denmark
Films set in the 19th century
Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA Award winners
Danish Culture Canon
Orion Pictures films







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Português
Română
Русский
Suomi
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Edit links
This page was last modified on 27 August 2015, at 01:24.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Privacy policy
About Wikipedia
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Contact Wikipedia
Developers
Mobile view
Wikimedia Foundation
Powered by MediaWiki 
  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast