Allen Smalling

Cult film, camp classic and six-Oscar winner, 1950's "All About Eve" influenced the making of motion pictures to come and was the inspiration for the play "Applause." But, somehow, no one got around to writing THE book on "All About Eve," its inspiration, its making, its reception and following, and how it lives on -- until now.

Author Sam Staggs did a huge amount of painstaking research for this "All About 'All About Eve': The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made," especially noteworthy because almost all of this 50-year-old movie's principal players are dead (with one notable exception: Celeste Holm, who would not grant him an interview). Staggs locates the kernel of the movie in a magazine story, "The Wisdom of Eve," about a conniving young woman who befriends and then betrays an insecure older actress, "Margola Cranston." He finds the actual, real-life "Eve" figure and interviews her, discovering that life and art are not necessarily the same.

While there is room for disagreement about the subtitle -- what about "Stage Door"? "The Women"? "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"?-certainly the atmosphere on the set was not the most cordial. On the first day of shooting, when Holm wished co-star Bette Davis a good morning, Davis replied, "Oh, shit, good manners." Other than scripted dialogue, Holm and Davis did not speak to each other for the rest of filming.

The movie was indeed a solid career-booster for Marilyn Monroe as Miss Caswell, "a graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Arts." Otherwise, Staggs' thesis is controversial: "For others in the cast -- Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Gary Merrill, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, and for [writer/director Joseph] Mankiewicz himself -- 'All About Eve' was the climax... If not for this movie, half the cast would be forgotten."

After its thunderous critical and box-office success, "Eve" went on to become the movie that never really faded from consciousness, thanks to movie-house revivals and TV broadcasts. As Staggs says, "The subtext has beguiled several generations of devotees, largely gay men, who have 'read' the film as though it beamed a limelight into the closet of their hearts." Margo Channing, woman on the edge; Birdie Coonan, the buddy with common sense; and Addison DeWitt, serpentine critic, all have their camp charms delineated here.

Some critics have said that, at 385 pages, "All About 'All About Eve'" may be too much of a good thing -- but this "bumpy night" is nothing less than a joy ride.

"All About 'All About Eve'"
by Sam Staggs
St. Martin's Press, $24.95, 385 pages (2000-05-25)

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