Besides offering a major improvement in the quality of the image and sound, the new DVD also includes a good selection of extras. There's a 25 minute "Backstory" from AMC that is very informative and entertaining. There are two separate commentary tracks, one with Celeste Holm, Christopher Mankiewicz (Joseph's son), and Kenneth Geist, the other with Sam Staggs, author of "All About 'All About Eve'". There are
promotional interviews with Davis and Baxter, four newsreels, a trailer, and a restoration comparison.

The restoration comparison is one of the strangest that I've seen. Instead of an audio track explaining the problems and processes involved in the transfer, there's a series of screens with text printed on them. There then follows a series of comparisons from various versions of the film. There's nothing really wrong with any of this, but considering the huge amount of time and effort that goes into a restoration of this magnitude, I expected something a bit more dynamic.

For any "All About Eve" fan, old or new, this is the DVD we have been waiting for, and at five dollars less than the original DVD, a real bargain.

Highly recommended!


Classic story; classic performances   December 23, 2003
 25 out of 30 found this review helpful

When I was a kid I would go to the second-run movie theater virtually every Saturday and watch three features, a cartoon and a newsreel indiscriminately. It was all wonderful to me (although I would hide bashfully behind the seat during the love scenes). I would come out of the theater several hours later (sometimes watching one of the features twice) amazed at what I'd seen and changed forever.

The first adult movie that ever really held my interest though was All About Eve. Such is the power of the all too human story and how directly and clearly it is told from a celebrated script and some sublime direction by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Bette Davis who was then, by Hollywood standards for actresses, an ancient 41-years-old but not yet halfway through a 58-year movie career, stars as Margo Channing, a New York stage actress feeling very heavily the loss of her splendid youth. Eve Harrington is played with a veiled duplicity by Anne Baxter in a breakout role. I sat with fascination, understanding perfectly how and why she had insinuated herself into Margo's life, and on the edge of my seat to find out what would become of her. Yes, a child may well know of such matters, and it is to the credit of Mankiewicz and everyone involved in the production that a movie could be made that would inform and fire the imagination of a ten-year-old boy while at the same time intrigue and entertain adults. Ah, if only they made "chick flicks" like this today!

Of course, All About Eve is more than a chick flick even though the men, Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill) as Margo's beau, and Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe) as a writer (and husband of Margo's best friend, Karen, played by Celest Holm) headed for Hollywood, take a back seat to the main action which is the playing out of the eternal power struggle between (take your pick: they all fit psychologically): youth and age, the daughter and the mother, the bride and the mother-in-law, the upstart and the established talent, the new and the old.

Bette Davis is excellent of course, and the role fits her like a glove. But what transfixed me as a child was the contrast between the wholesome good looks of Anne Baxter and her sneaky treachery. Could someone so pretty be so bad? I may have wondered who I would have preferred for a mother, Davis or Baxter, and perhaps have come away not knowing. For Bette Davis the luster had gone from those famous eyes, and so it was only natural that her character Margo feared the loss of love from men. Even that I understood as a child. And in Baxter, youth would be served and perhaps she could be forgiven the lies because time does not stand still for anyone, especially it does not stand still for a starlet.

Notable in supporting roles are Thelma Ritter and George Sanders, the former as Margo's maid and alter-ego Birdie, the latter as the cynical and barbed theater critic, Addison DeWitt (named perhaps with the 17th/18th century Brit wit and essayist Joseph Addison in mind), who escorts about town none other than a not-so-dumb blonde named Marilyn Monroe in an early role. The script, resplendent with some very sharp one-liners, was adapted from the story, "The Wisdom of Eve" (a bit of irony-on-the-square in the title perhaps) by Mary Orr and of course became the Broadway musical Applause (not yet a movie). Mankiewicz won Oscars for both his script and his direction, and Sanders won for Best Supporting Actor while the movie itself won for Best Picture over such fine films as Sunset Boulevard and Born Yesterday. Both Davis and Baxter were nominated for Best Actress but lost out to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday.

Bottom line: one of the great stories of the theater, a classic Hollywood film not to be missed.


One of the best american films ever made. What? No extras??   January 8, 2002
 16 out of 17 found this review helpful

All about Eve is (along with Sunset Blvd.) my favourite film of that year. What makes it so great? Everything! This is the story of how greedy people get ahead in showbiz: using other people and manipulating their lives.

But there's more than meets the eye. The screenplay really shows how the characters revolving around Eve get affected by her actions. All of them play important parts in her raise and ultimate fall.

And more... The ending is one of the best endings ever written on movie history. This is a film that trully shows you the circle of life and how the evil that you do returns to you in the end.

Bette Davis, Celeste Holm, Anne Baxter, Thelma Ritter (and even Marilyn Monroe)... This is also a film dominated by women. It is their antagonism between them that moves the film. What they want and what they do. Every scene in this film is capital.

An american gem: a solid script, a strong cast, a beautiful music score, great production values, a great cinematography and on top of it all, a great director in peak form.

This DVD edition is ok. I think this film deserved a better edition with some commentary or a brief documentary, production notes or something like that. Here, all you get is the trailer. Anyway, with or without extras, this film is a must!

My two favourite lines: Bette Davis' "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night!" and "I wish someone would tell me about me." ohh, but there are many... George Sanders' introduction is beautiful as is his "killer to killer" final talk with Eve.
Buy it now!


Welcome to the theater!   October 9, 1999
 14 out of 16 found this review helpful

One of the most brilliantly written, fantastically directed, electrically acted films of all time, All About Eve remains one of the truly great films of the 1950's,(it's hard to choose just one film in what was arguably Hollywood's greateset decade.) The script is one of the best ever written, with lines that, no matter how many times you hear it, will have you in stitches, and scenes that you'll find yourself rewinding over and over again, gawking at how witty and genuinly perfect they are. The brilliant direction by Joseph L Mankiewicz and the truly outstanding acting, however, are on par with the script. Bette Davis is remarkable as Margo Channing, but please don't think she chews up and spits out everything and everyone in sight. She is more the focal point in a beautifully woven tapestry of acting, with great performances by the entire cast, with include George Sanders, Celestle Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Thelma Ritter, and Anne Baxter as the the icy Eve. I don't want to bore you with my gushing, so I'll just say this: If you haven't already, please see All About Eve, a movie that will change your perspective on just how great film can be.