There are movies, and then there are Movies.  Movies (capital "M") never fade, no matter how many times you watch them.  They seem flawless--if not in message, then at least artistically.  They become standard-bearers for their genre, if not for all of film.

[caption id="attachment_11921" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Anne Baxter and Bette Davis (with Celeste holm, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe, and Hugh Marlowe backgrounded) in All About Eve"][/caption]

All About Eve (Mankiewicz, USA, 1950) is a Movie.  For 47 years, it held the record for most Oscar nominations, at 14.  With a classic plot (infatuation, ambition, fame, mortality), unforgettable characters played unforgettably (Bette Davis in a career role as chain-smoking, aging diva Margo Channing), and inimitable style (Edith Head on costumes, obviously), it stands the hardest tests of time, art's most indefatigable adversary.

All About Eve defies time in part because it has one subject that will never become obsolete and from which it can never be removed:  All About Eve is really, at its core, a movie about itself.

At the age of 42, facing obsolescence after a string of poorly-received Warner Bros. films, Bette Davis took on the role of Margo Channing, a 40 year-old Broadway star facing obsolescence as she begins to age beyond the roles available to her.  At about the time that her beau Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) makes a trip to Hollywood to work with Darryl F. Zanuck (All About Eve's real-life producer), Margo takes in zealous fan Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) to be her assistant.

What follows is a damning chronicle of what show business does to women, what fame does to people, and what Hollywood bodes for the world of Broadway.  Backstabbing, jealousy, and egomania rule the day in the stars' dressing rooms, as directors, actors and writers constantly overestimate their own importance.  Every once in awhile "someone from Hollywood" will pop in, always with a bigger name, a more beautiful fur coat, and a promise of greater returns for less work.

When told from the perspective of a big Hollywood production, this message turns in on itself and becomes as much a prophecy as observation.  When Joseph L. Mankiewicz sets up Hollywood as a threatening force, it seems more like a weapon he's wielding than a situation he's describing.  All About Eve is all about women. And so, yes—it's all about stardom, too.

Don't miss one of the greatest movies of all time.  Plays Wednesday only at the Landmark Metro, 6:45 and 9:20pm.