Regularly updated blog charting the most important films of the last 104 years.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
239. An American In Paris (1951)
Directed By Vincente Minnelli
Synopsis
Quite simple really, there's this American painter who lives in the Left Bank in Paris. He falls in love with this girl, but she is engaged to marry another man. Eventually he gets the girl.
Review
As you can see by the synopsis this is not a film that you really watch for the human drama of it, or for the deep characterizations. You watch it because it is fun, it has great music, great choreography and some of the best production values ever.
This is the musical with probably the best soundtrack of all time, all the tracks here are part of The Great American Songbook, these are some of George and Ira Gershwin's best compositions, both in terms of the songs and the great symphonic suite during the final sequence.
And this final sequence is amazing, for almost 20 minutes there is no dialogue, only the amazing Gene Kelly dancing around mock-ups of Paris and music playing, the choreography is excellent, and the music mimics the sounds of the town and the emotions of the main character perfectly, by the end of it you almost feel the need to applaud.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The story of the film is interspersed with show-stopping dance numbers choreographed by Gene Kelly and set to popular Gershwin tunes. Songs and music include "I Got Rhythm," "I'll Build A Stairway to Paradise," "'S Wonderful," and "Our Love is Here to Stay". The climax is "The American in Paris" ballet, an 18 minute dance featuring Kelly and Caron set to Gershwin's An American in Paris. The ballet alone cost more than half a million dollars, a staggering sum at the time.
238. Journal d'un Curé de Campagne (Diary Of a Country Priest) (1951)
Directed By Robert Bresson
Synopsis
A priest is put in not the most pious of cities, he debates himself with poor health, doubts about his own faith, and the spiritual well-being of his not very friendly parish. It all ends badly.
Review
This film marks a sea-change in the French films we have had on this list, it eschew all the lovely humour that has made French cinema so great until not, for a psychological level of drama and introspection that has made French cinema famous now.
This has the terrible effect of making the film look like a caricature of French Cinema itself, I am expecting at any moment to see someone drinking a Stella Artois and that it was all an advert.
On the other hand, this progression is an important one in showing us the possibilities of cinema, it is definitely not a shallow medium, and nothing could be less shallow than this film, tackling God, death and despair is not light snacking. At times it does however seem to be too concerned with its own navel. Still, a good, if not excellent film.
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Narrated in the voice of the idealistic priest it explores his struggle to overcome the lethargy of the people in his parish. As the priest, whose name is never spoken, tells the story of his daily work, his parish becomes a microcosm for the universal struggles, griefs and triumphs of humankind. Bresson began his trademark technique of using only nonprofessionals as actors in this, his third feature film.
WWI starts and a couple of British Methodist missionaries in West German Africa get notified of it by a Canadian who goes up and down the river with the mail. Well the Germans come into the village and burn all the houses and take all the natives for conscription, the missionary dies and his sister remains alone in the village. The Canadian comes back eventually and they, mainly she, hatch a plan to sink a German boat which is stopping the British from coming in, with home-made torpedoes on what is a glorified dinghy.
Review
So here we are, with yet another great film on this list. The African Queen is a lovely film, very funny, very touching, very well acted and very good. There is of course a bigger plot, but it is little more than a MacGuffin to move the story along.
The real points of interest here are the performances by Bogart and Hepburn in the two main parts, their chemistry is amazing, and they are both spectacular actors, doing what is probably some of their best acting here, at least for Bogart. None of them are playing their usual parts, he's not supposed to be this attractive guy, much the opposite, and she isn't a feisty liberated woman, even if she becomes so throughout the film.
This is a great film where character development and the development of the relationship between the two main characters is just a joy to watch, even if at times it might feel a little bit rushed, it is easy to see how in that situation it would be exactly what would happen. Then the film is beautifully photographed in Technicolor by Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus, Red Shoes, Pandora And The Flying Dutchman). Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Most of the action takes place aboard a boat - the African Queen of the title - and scenes on board the boat were filmed using a large raft with a mockup of the boat on top. Sections of the boat set could be removed to make room for the large Technicolor camera. This proved hazardous on one occasion when the boat's boiler - a heavy copper replica - almost fell over onto Hepburn. It was not bolted down since it also had to be moved to accommodate the camera. The small boat used in the film was made in a boatyard in Lytham St Annes, England.
The film also features a German gunboat, the Empress Luisa, which is based on the former World War I vessel MV Liemba (known until 1924 as the Graf von Götzen), which sank in Lake Tanganyika in 1916, but was subsequently refloated by the British and continues to operate as a passenger ferry to this day.
Pandora is a bar singer spending her holidays on the Spanish coast with a bunch of friends, most of whom are in love with her, there is a yacht on the coast, and they jokingly start talking about the Flying Dutchman living there. Well it is true, and he must find a woman who loves him and is willing to die for him, the very aloof Pandora does, and is more than willing to die for him.
Review
This was a strange film, it doesn't really fit into any of the categories of the time it was made in. It is a film which seems to be in the tradition of Magical Realism, but there was no Magical Realism at the time.
It is also somewhat strange in that, at the time, it was called pretentious, but after the swathes of Merchant-Ivory films that have been made since then it really doesn't look like it to our eyes. Well, doesn't look any more pretentious than most of those films.
It is also an extremely literate film without being based on any printed work of fiction. It defies most categorisation but it ultimately works as a great piece of cinematic art. It is beautifully shot in Technicolor, and pretty well acted, but it kind of needs to be seen to be understood, and I would strongly advise you to do so.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From IMDB:
* The first feature film in color for Ava Gardner.
* For still photography of Ava Gardner, producer Albert Lewin hired his friend, the famous surrealist artist Man Ray.
* The tavern "Las Dos Tortugas" shares the same name (but in a different language) as the tavern "The Two Turtles" in Albert Lewin's earlier The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).
* Man Ray also painted the paintings and designed the chess set.
Tribute to Ava Gardner, the opening scene and the song she is singing is actually form Pandora and The Flying Dutchman:
A man responsible for the transfers of gold bullion into the bank gets an idea of how to steal 1 million pounds through transforming the gold into Eiffel Tower Replicas and smuggling them to Paris. He assembles a team for the caper, but things go slowly wrong, and in the end he is the only one who escapes... well with only 25,000 and just for a year.
Review
This is another one of the jewels in the crown of the Ealing Studios, it isn't as good as Kind Hearts and Coronets, but then what is? But it is still a very amusing and actually pretty exciting film.
The action sequences here are as good as anything made at this time, be it running down the Eiffel Tower at great speed or the final car chase which is also amazing. Alec Guinness is amazing as always, and there is a very young Audrey Hepburn in the opening scene which is a nice little bit of trivia.
This film shows us a very vibrant cinema industry in Britain in the early 1950s where comedies were actually funny unlike what would happen some decades later with stuff like Carry On, which even if they have kitsch charm are nowhere near the sheer quality of the direction of this film. Incidentally Sid James has a part in the film as one of the main characters. Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Audrey Hepburn makes an early film appearance in a small role as Chiquita near the start of the film. Reportedly, she was supposed to have had a major part in the film, but other commitments prevented this, so Guinness lobbied for her to be given a walk-on part. Playing an apparent consort of Holland's, she is given some money by Holland (a "birthday present") and says "How sweet of you!" before departing. This was the first film featuring Hepburn to be given major distribution in the United States (most of her other early roles were in movies that were only distributed in Great Britain or Europe).
Robert Shaw, later famous for his roles in such films as Jaws and From Russia With Love, makes his film debut in a wordless role as a chemist in the police exhibition sequence.
Desmond Llewelyn (later Q from the James Bond films) has an uncredited part as one of the French customs officers.
Two men meet on a train, one of them tells the other how he imagined that the perfect murder would be if two strangers took up the job of murdering each-other's targets. The other guy laughs it off, not imagining that the psycho would actually go on with it, but he does. And when he shows up in order to get his end of the bargain fulfilled, the other guy has to think how to get out of this deal without being implicated in the murder already committed.
Review
Hitchcock gives us another excellent film, and this one has some particularly good moments, inserted into a great premise for a story. The tennis game is more exciting than you ever thought a tennis game could be, the final carousel scene is also great. In fact there are little touches throughout the film which propel it from great to excellent.
Hitchcock lets his obsession with homosexuality show again here, much like in Rope, the villain is most obviously gay and disturbed. There is a slightly worrying inference that the two are related, however, we are in the 50's here where electro-shock treatment to "cure" homosexuality was a normal thing. So, Hitchcock looks quite benevolent in that context.
The acting is amazing throughout, and there is a reason why Hitchcock is a star director, and it is because his directing is heads and shoulders above that of most of his contemporaries, with few exceptions, and you always know you are going to have something good, if not excellent with him. Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Doubles
Countless pairs – both blatant and obscure – litter the movie throughout. The film starts out with pairs of feet scurrying about from opposite directions. Bruno orders two double drinks on the train. Hitchcock makes his trademark cameo appearance with his own “double” – a double bass. There are two young men accompanying the promiscuous Miriam on that fatal night, her death doubly reflected in her glasses. The list goes on; the doubles are countless.
Donald Spoto argues in his novel The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures that the film’s persistent usage of doubling helps to relate the world of standard order – as in politics, business, and athletics – to the seedy underworld of sin, corruption, and death.
Doubles even exist in the characters. Barbara Morton reminds Bruno so much of Miriam, the viewer nearly sees him strangle Mrs. Cunningham, a possible double for his mother (214). Like doubles, viewers see doppelgangers with Guy and Bruno. As with Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train is one of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgänger theme. The pair has what writer Peter Dellolio refers to as a “dark symbiosis.” Bruno embodies Guy’s dark desire to kill Miriam, a “real-life incarnation of Guy’s wish-fulfillment fantasy” (Dellolio 244). Bruno makes Guy’s fantasy a reality. The list of doubles goes on.
Crisscrossing
Like doubles, there’s a lot to be said for Hitchcock’s usage of crisscrossing in the movie. We see crossing railroad tracks as the train starts its voyage. Guy and Bruno meet on this train when they cross their legs simultaneously, accidentally bumping their feet. The crossed tennis racquets on the lighter, clothing styles, and of course, the crisscrossed murder scheme, are further examples of extensive crisscross use.
The crisscrossing element also parallels activities, the frantic tennis match in broad daylight crosscutting with Bruno’s efforts to retrieve the wayward lighter. The tension-filled scenes at the Forest Hills tennis match are very like a microcosm of the film itself: the thrilling action goes back and forth between the two protagonists, and we are the audience watching the game. This enables viewers to identify as much with the villain as they do with the hero. Crisscrossing is numerous within this film.
Homoeroticism
It is important to note the underlying homoerotic tension between Guy and Bruno, the latter pursuing the former throughout. According to Spoto’s analysis, viewers see Guy as the latent closet type and Bruno is the flamboyant gay who attempting to “out” him. Spoto suggests that the initials “A to G” on Guy’s all-important lighter could stand for “Anthony to Guy,” another element in the homosexual courtship (Spoto 212).
From this perspective, one could read homoeroticism in Barbara Morton’s statement “I think it’s wonderful to have a man love you so much he’d kill for you.” Perhaps this rings true of Bruno’s attraction to Guy. Their love/hate relationship climaxes when, after Guy pursues Bruno, they fight to the death on a runaway carousel, a grim parallelism of sex and death. At movie’s end, Spoto proposes that Ann and Guy’s ironic retreat from the inquisitive minister in the movie’s closing scene foreshadows problems within their marriage’s outcome. The psychotic courtship of a closeted homosexual and a sociopathic killer ultimately repels Guy from the altar, possibly stuffing him further into the closet (218). From this standpoint, there is no genuine resolution.
Blanche goes to New Orleans to visit her sister. Her sister lives with Marlon Brando, that's a surprise! I thought he was dead. A good time is had by all.
Review
It is actually quite interesting how the simple changing of a decade marked such a difference in film, films are much more willing to push the production code to its limits, and you can't push it much more than here.
Maybe this film had some kind of exception made as it was an adaptation of a theatre work, but even so it manages to imply, rather than show many things that Production code people would not have loved.
One of the most present of these is the sexual desire that arises from violence, and Brand just embodies the whole thing, he is an asshole but a sexy asshole. Blanche is damaged beyond repair to the point that she is intensely annoying, in what is a great performance by Vivien Leigh, but still she falls just short of deserving her end, letting you empathise with a character that at first look might seem double-faced and pretentious, but is in the end one of the more accurate portrayals of a woman with no self-confidence in the history of cinema. Another great film...
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
In 1993, the film was re-released with the cut scenes restored, and this is the version available on VHS and DVD. The restored scenes include the following:
* Stella says "Stanley's always smashed things. Why, on our wedding night, as soon as we came in here, he snatched off one of my slippers and rushed about the place smashing the light bulbs with it...I was sort of thrilled by it."
* The dialogue makes it clearer that Blanche's husband was a homosexual and that she made him commit suicide with her insults.
* Blanche's line explaining that she wants to kiss the paperboy "softly, sweetly" now has the words "...on the mouth" at the end.
* When Stella takes refuge upstairs after Stanley punches her, her emotions are made clear as she is shown in close up, her face blank with desire.
* Stanley's line "Maybe you wouldn't be so bad to interfere with." and the resulting rape scene.
This not-most-ethical of all journalists finds himself kicked out of all big city newspapers to the point that he has to get a job in Albuquerque, hoping to get the big scoop that will give him a pass bag to the big leagues. And he gets his scoop in the form of a man buried under a mountain in an Indian burial ground. The reporter milks it for all it's worth, making it last and last, bribing the Sheriff with publicity turning the whole thing into a circus, until the man inside dies. And racked with guilt he throws his career away and ends up dead to.
Review
As I have been saying the films in the 50's have completely come of age, and here you have another, very adult film. The exploration that goes on here of the whole of American media culture is a scathing and vitriolic attack on all it stands for.
Of course in these times of the 1950's this was not the most popular thing to do, and the film was a flop. Thankfully we have it back in all its glory, and it was never more relevant, only now it doesn't apply solely to America, it has been successfully exported through the Western world.
These "human interest" stories that seem to do nothing but drain all the dignity out of the subjects and the reporters are a common occurrence. But they have rarely been treated as insightfully as in this film. If the film got some flak for being unrealistic when it came out, it seems only too real to us now, 56 years later.
This film is angry, about the media, about celebrity worship, about the whole Sado-Masochistic bloodthirst of the public, who feel for the subjects but thrive on the pain and want it to go on and on. But also the capitalist opportunism sorrounding this sado-masochism, selling papers, souvenirs, burgers, tickets etc. Cases like the whole McCann fiasco recently are examples of this circus, or the Diana inquest for example. It is all disgusting and I am glad to see Mr. Wilder agrees. Oh and Kirk Douglas has a great part here.
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
At the time of its release, critics found little to admire. In his review in the New York Times, Bosley Crowther called it "a masterly film" but added, "Mr. Wilder has let imagination so fully take command of his yarn that it presents not only a distortion of journalistic practice but something of a dramatic grotesque . . . [it] is badly weakened by a poorly constructed plot, which depends for its strength upon assumptions that are not only naïve but absurd. There isn't any denying that there are vicious newspaper men and that one might conceivably take advantage of a disaster for his own private gain. But to reckon that one could so tie up and maneuver a story of any size, while other reporters chew their fingers, is simply incredible." The Hollywood Reporter called it "ruthless and cynical . . . a distorted study of corruption and mob psychology that . . . is nothing more than a brazen, uncalled-for slap in the face of two respected and frequently effective American institutions - democratic government and the free press." Variety was more positive, noting "the performances are fine. Douglas enacts the heel reporter ably, giving it color to balance its unsympathetic character. Jan Sterling also is good in a role that has no softening touches, and Benedict's victim portrayal is first-rate. Billy Wilder's direction captures the feel of morbid expectancy that always comes out in the curious that flock to scenes of tragedy."
In more recent years, the film has found new respect among critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "Although the film is 56 years old, I found while watching it again that it still has all its power. It hasn't aged because Wilder and his co-writers, Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels, were so lean and mean [with their dialogue] . . . [Kirk Douglas'] focus and energy . . . is almost scary. There is nothing dated about [his] performance. It's as right-now as a sharpened knife."
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader calls it "cold, lurid, and fascinating," and Nathan Lee of The Village Voice says, "Here is, half a century out of the past, a movie so acidly au courant it stings."
Time Out London says, "As a diatribe against all that is worst in human nature, it has moments dipped in pure vitriol." TV Guide calls it "a searing example of writer-director Billy Wilder at his most brilliantly misanthropic" and adds, "An uncompromising portrait of human nature at its worst, the film . . . stands as one of the great American films of the 1950s."
Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine says, "[it] allowed Wilder to question the very nature of human interest stories and the twisted relationship between the American media and its public. More than 50 years after the film's release, when magazines compete to come up with the cattiest buzz terms and giddily celebrate the demise of celebrity relationships for buffo bucks, Ace in the Hole feels more relevant than ever.
In its review of the DVD release, Slate said, "If film noir illustrates the crackup of the American dream . . . Ace in the Hole is an exemplar of the form."
Dix takes a girl home to relate to him what happens in some trashy novel that he has to write a film script based on. The girl leaves his apartment and dies later that night. Dix is of course the main suspect. Laurel, a neighbour, states that she saw him after the girl left, and he has an alibi. Dix and Laurel fall in love, and Laurel witnessing Dixes violent temper gets doubts about his innocence. Her paranoia leads her to try to leave him, making him violent towards her... at that moment the phone rings, and the true killer has confessed. It doesn't make a difference to Laura, Dix walks away.
Review
If there is something that can be said about films of the 1950's, it is the fact that they are noticeably more adult than films in the 40's. This is a perfect example of that, and the tendency for navel-gazing emerging out of Hollywood. The last three Hollywood films here have been focused on actors, screenwriters etc.
This is most definitely Bogart's most complex character on screen until now, his portrayal of a basically good guy who is also inexcusably violent is a very believable one. This isn't some one dimensional psycho, he truly loves his girlfriend and his friends, he is a good writer, but he is also violent.
Few films have been so nuanced in their portrayal of a violent characters, Dix is not a monster, he just does monstrous things. The ending of the film is also admirable, Dix couldn't kill Laurel, but Laurel wouldn't just take it in her stride, so Dix catching himself in violence feeling ashamed and leaving, with the notion that he lost everything because of his temper is the only right one. Great film.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The title is also one of the songs on the Smithereens' 1986 debut album, Especially for You. The lyrics include a reference to one of the pivotal lines in the film: "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me." It is also the title of a 1980 Joy Division song, later re-recorded and released as a B-side to New Order's Ceremony single and was a B-side by Bush. The song "Morning Glory", from Versus' 1998 album Two Cents plus Tax, includes a reference to the film's title in its lyrics, and quotes one of the sentences from the line "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me." in each of the song's three verses. The country band Rascal Flatts's song "While You Loved Me" is also an homage to the film's signature lines.
230. Los Olvidados (The Young and The Damned) (1950)
Directed By Luis Bunuel
Synopsis
This kid Jaibo escapes form the correctional facility he was in and comes back to the old neighbourhood to fuck up the life or kill just about everyone there.
Review
A feel good film this ain't. And that makes me feel good. I don't care that much for escapism film, and this one was anything but, it plunges the viewer in with the most unsavoury cast of children and adults, the only characters you could have some sympathy for die violent deaths and it features probably one of the most hateful characters in the history of cinema.
The character of Jaibo is such an albatross that you are really happy when he gets his comeuppance, he is a dark cloud over everyone he meets in the film, but believably so. Actually the whole film is quite believable, even the elements of surreality work in context.
I was a kid not that long ago, I hung out in the street with unsavoury kids, I did bad things to random people, I know what the fuck is happening in this film, I've met these characters and they are so recognisable that it is uncanny. This is more realistic than any Italian neo-relism we've had until now, good going Bunuel. But it isn't comfortable watching.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Thematically, Los Olvidados is similar to Buñuel's earlier Spanish film, Las Hurdes; both films deal with the never-ending cycle of poverty and despair. Los Olvidados, is especially interesting because although “Buñuel employed … elements of Italian neorealism,” a concurrent movement across the Atlantic Ocean marked by “outdoor locations, nonprofessional actors, low budget productions, and a focus on the working classes,” Los Olvidados is not a neorealist film (Fernandez, 42). “Neorealist reality is incomplete, conventional, and above all rational,” Buñuel once wrote in a 1953 essay titled "Poetry and Cinema," “The poetry, the mystery, all that completes and enlarges tangible reality is utterly lacking” (Sklar, 324). Los Olvidados contains such surrealistic shots as when “a boy throws an egg at the camera lens, where it shatters and drips” or a scene in which a boy has a dream in slow-motion (Sklar, 324).
Norma Desmond is a forgotten star of the silent age, Gillis is an unsuccessful screenwriter, they get entangled together when he helps her edit her great script for Salome, he eventually becomes her gigolo. It all ends in tears.
Review
Well this was a refreshing film, it is great to see such a demented film coming out of Hollywood. Probably one of the nastiest, more demented films since Stroheim's Greed, and it is at the same time great and quite sad to see Stroheim serving as Max the butler here.
Then you have Gloria Swanson and the spectacular main character, in a part that was probably even more deserving of the Oscar than Bette Davis in All About Eve... although none of them won it.
The exploration of celebrity culture and the exploitation of people inherent in the Hollywood world is superb. The film is a feast, both visually, with its great sets, and opening and closing shots and in terms of script. This is one of the most quotable films ever made, almost every line is perfect. And when you know the actors from their silent days, this all gets mixed with a bitter-sweet feeling of loss. I can only dimly imagine what this would have looked like to the audience of the time, it feels so fresh today.
A truly amazing film, and if I could give it more than 10 stars I would. Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
In dissecting Hollywood's "world of illusion" Wilder carefully placed the story within as authentic a setting as possible and made use of Hollywood history. Norma Desmond's name is believed to have been inspired by actor/director William Desmond Taylor, who had been murdered in 1922, and his close associate and friend Mabel Normand, whose career was ruined by scandals surrounding the murder.
Swanson was considered a fitting representative of Hollywood's past, remembered nostalgically by older fans but unknown to many younger movie viewers. Her personal collection of photographs decorated the set of Norma Desmond's home, causing Desmond's fictional past to resemble Swanson's authentic career.
The script refers to real films such as Gone with the Wind and real people such as Darryl F. Zanuck, D. W. Griffith, Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd, William Demarest, Adolphe Menjou, Rudolph Valentino, Rod La Rocque, Vilma Bánky, John Gilbert, Mabel Normand, Bebe Daniels, Marie Prevost, Betty Hutton and Barbara Stanwyck along with the Black Dahlia murder case. Norma Desmond declares admiration for Greta Garbo.
Wilder extended his Hollywood references into some of his casting choices. Erich von Stroheim was a leading director of the silent era. In the role of Max he watches a film with Norma Desmond and the briefly shown scene is from Queen Kelly (1929), which von Stroheim himself directed with Swanson in the title role. Cecil B. De Mille, often credited as the person most responsible for making Swanson a star, plays himself, and was filmed on the set of his current film Samson and Delilah at Paramount Studios. He calls Norma "young fellow," the nickname he had called Swanson, a tiny detail of authenticity suggested by De Mille.
Norma's friends who come to play bridge with her, described in the script as "The Waxworks", are Swanson's contemporaries Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H. B. Warner, who, like De Mille, play themselves. Hedda Hopper also plays herself reporting on Norma Desmond's downfall in the film's final scenes.
In a comic scene Norma Desmond performs a pantomime for Joe Gillis as a Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty", in homage to Swanson's earliest film roles. She also performs a Charles Chaplin impersonation identical to one she performed in the film Masquerade (1924).
Wilder also made use of authentic locales. Joe Gillis's home in the Alto-Nido apartments was a real apartment block located near Paramount Studios and often populated by struggling writers. The scenes of Gillis and Betty Schaefer on Paramount's backlot were filmed on the actual backlot and the interior of Schwab's Drug Store was carefully recreated for several scenes. The exterior scenes of the Desmond house were filmed in the vicinity of an old home on Wilshire Blvd. built during the 1920s, which by 1949 was owned by the former wife of J. Paul Getty. The house was also featured in Rebel Without A Cause. It has since been demolished and an office building stands in its location.
Eve is a bitch, who Single White Female's fantabulous Margo, trying to take over her life, her career and even her husband. She kind of gets the career but at a high price. Moral of the story, never play a player.
Review
This film is a superb, bleak view of the theatre world. It is superb because there were very few, if any, American films to have so good or so natural dialogues until now. The whole thing sparkles with brilliance, the performances, particularly the one by Betty Davies are career defining.
This is a pretty long film going over 2 hours, but it never bores you, it keeps you on the edge of your seat just because of its tremendous dialogue writing, by the spectacular performances.
Really there is not much more than can be said about the film, except the fact that it deserves to be seen and that it really deserved all the 14 Oscar nominations it got, even if I don't understand how Betty didn't get an Oscar for it, it went to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday... yeah. Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
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 Blvd., released the same year, drew similar praise, and the two were often favorably compared. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times says of Davis that "veteran actress Margo Channing in All About Eve was her greatest role". 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."
