 The Best Picture Our Columnists Reflect on Oscar's Best Films |
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(1950) |
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 Bette Davis, right, and Anne Baxter face off while an amused Gary Merrill enjoys the moment. |
Baxter had special insight for this sophisticated film
By JIM BAWDEN
for TheColumnists.com
IT'S HARD to accept the fact that my favorite Oscar-winning "best picture" is now more than half a century old. I'm talking about "All About Eve," a film of such great wit and sophistication that it's unlikely there'll ever be another film anything like it.
I always loved "All About Eve," but I didn't really fixate on it until I met one of the stars, Anne Baxter. It was in 1977 and the assignment from the magazine Films In Review was to write up her career complete with filmography and stills.
In "All About Eve," Baxter played Eve Harrington, the fawning understudy to Broadway legend Margo Channing (Bette Davis), who waits for her chance to step into Margo's role and climb right over her helpful mentor to her own stardom. She gave a marvelous performance, one of a multitude of wonderful performances in the film, so I was eager to meet her.
A luncheon date in Los Angeles was arranged but when Baxter showed up she was more than an hour late. Her extravagant gestures and florid diction made me stop and think. Was this Margo Channing or Eve Harrington I was meeting?
``Both!'' snapped Baxter.
In the movies she'd been shy, sly Eve but on Broadway she'd morphed into grand, larger-than-life Margo in "Applause," the musical version of the movie. Baxter said "All About Eve" was her best movie although she'd won her only Oscar for her supporting performance in 1946's "The Razor's Edge."
``The original casting called for Claudette Colbert as Margo and Jeanne Crain as Eve,'' Baxter confided. ``Jeanne had just come off a huge hit in the movie 'Pinky' and was Oscar nominated. Then Jeanne had to bow out when she learned she was pregnant. I was asked to step in because the director, Joe Mankiewicz, thought I looked like Claudette--we had the same box-like faces. He said it was a good angle because Eve spent all her time wishing she were Margo.
``Then Claudette was on her last day on the set of a picture called 'Three Came Home,' a wartime drama about the internment of women in the Dutch East Indies. And in a freak accident she broke her back and had to leave the picture. With less than a week before filming started, Joe was frantic.
``It just so happened that Bette Davis had just finished a picture and was available and that solved our huge problem. Poor Claudette cried for days but there was nothing to be done. Bette arrived with a severe case of laryngitis and was very hoarse. She had to keep that hoarseness in her voice even after it cleared up for the sake of continuity. People always thought she was imitating Talullah Bankhead. Not so!''
Many of Baxter's key scenes are with George Sanders, nicely cast as the evil columnist Addison DeWitt.
``A very nasty man," Baxter told me. "Totally in character as Addison. Always had something mean to say to everyone. During rehearsals he'd say to me `Why, my dear, if you're going to read the line that way we might as well all go home.' There were five of us nominated for Oscars but only George won, to Bette's intense fury.''
Baxter refused studio head Darryl Zanuck's request to be nominated as best supporting actress ``because the film, after all, centered on Eve, not Margo. Bette always felt this deprived her of a third Oscar--I had split the vote. Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter split the vote as best supporting actress (and lost to Josephine Hull). Only George had clear sailing.''
Baxter never again worked with Davis, although when she took over from Lauren Bacall in the Broadway musical 'Applause,' she said, ``I received a strange phone call. It was Bette on the line, asking to come see the play, but to watch from the sidelines instead of up front where she feared she'd be watched. So she sat just out of reach of the stage and it was very strange, Margo passing judgment on Eve, who had become Margo. I felt all spooky.''
(In another ironic casting
twist, Baxter replaced Bette Davis as the wealthy owner of the
St. Gregory Hotel in TV's "Hotel" series when Davis
became ill after filming only the opening episode.)
Baxter was scheduled to work again with Mankiewicz in 1953's
"People Will Talk," but Baxter explained, ``this time
I got pregnant and Jeanne Crain replaced me. Mank said it seemed
like fate catching up with me.''
A few years later Baxter sent a copy of the screenplay and I've read it several times. It contains more sophisticated one-liners than any other movie I know--with the possible exception of 1942's "The Man Who Came To Dinner," which started out as a play.
A few of my favorite lines:
DeWitt (George Sanders) on the acting ability of Miss Caswell (Marilyn Monroe): ``Miss Caswell is a graduate of the Copacabana school of dramatic arts.''
Birdie Coonan (Thelma Ritter) on the history of Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter): ``What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end.''
Or Margo Channing (Bette Davis): ``Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy evening.''
Fifty years after it was made, most of its stars are gone (with the exception of Celeste Holm) and Broadway is no longer as active. Great stars like Margo Channing have vanished. But there's something about this brilliantly written film that remains vivid and contemporary, even in the 21st century.
©2000 by James Bawden. The "Oscar" logo and the phrase "Academy Awards" are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
James Bawden writes about TV and movies for the Toronto Star.
You can contact James Bawden or comment on this column with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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