All About "All About Eve"

"Everybody has a heart, except some people." Bette Davis in All About Eve.

Bette Davis, indisputably, has a heart. Just look at the pictures up top. She might have painted on her eyebrows, but there was no plastic surgery for this aging beauty. If the eyes are the window to the soul, then Bette Davis makes you feel like a Peeping Tom. Margo Channing, the character that Bette plays in All About Eve has a heart. But what about these "some people" who have no heart? Who are they?

Two characters in AAE stand out as particularly heartless: the young actress who calls herself Eve, and her Svengali: an obscenely urbane theatre critic. These two people are united in one thing: cold hearted excellence. Eve, as Margo's assistant, makes life easier for everyone. This is just a cover for her raging ambition. As the movie unfolds we begin to see that she will do anything to be a star. Margo has an inkling of Eve's duplicity, but can't convince herself, or others, that Eve is really as manipulative as Margo suspects. Eve, though inwardly worshipping herself, to outward appearances worships two things: the theatre (said in a high falutin' accent) and Margo, who, despite her age, is the most sought after actress on Broadway. Margo only half-worships herself. She knows that her beauty is declining, she abhors the theatre groupies that idolize her, but one part of her secretly loves the attention. It is this part of her that prompts her to hire Eve as her assistant. In struggling to see Eve for what she really is, Margo comes to purify herself of the last vestiges of self-worship that remain in her noble soul.

Margo is helped in this task by the doggedly patient love of her beau (I hate that word, but it fits in this case) Bill Sampson. Bill sees the beauty of Margo's soul and spends the whole movie trying to get Margo to accept his love. She persists in castigating herself for becoming old and out of place. In a heart-rending scene, he realizes that the only way to help her is to break it off with her. Given how right they are for each other, he can't believe what he is doing (this is a paraphrase of what he says): "This is like something in a book. I wouldn't believe it unless I had seen it." To which Margo responds sheepishly, "Where are you going? To see Eve?" It's a pathetic attempt at jealousy. Margo knows that her spiritual struggles are responsible for the rift, but she won't admit this to herself. Bill's response is perfect: "Suddenly, that makes it all believable."

With Bill out of her life, Margo's head clears. She begins to see that, in the interest of maintaining a certain image of herself, that of the beautiful actress, she is choosing a life of loneliness. [Feminists beware of oncoming quote] In a reflective moment she says (this time a direct quote):

Funny business, a woman's career, the things you drop on the way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. It's one career all females have in common - being a woman. Sooner or later we've got to work at it no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is. Without that you're not a woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings but you're not a woman. Slow curtain, the end.

What's that Bette? Women need men to be complete? Sounds right to me! The larger point that this movie makes is that our heartlessness comes from our choice not to rely on anyone outside of ourselves. Why do we do this if it makes us lonely? I think the movie has an answer for this, but I don't want to give it away. Rent it and get yourself some wisdom!