It's Like Waves Of Love Coming Over The Footlights...

So far, this is only my second post fully dedicated to All About Eve, which is surprising because it is my favourite film, and is definitely the one I know most about. Thanks to Sam Staggs' book All About "All About Eve" (which I have read many times), I know all about its psychological meanings, on set romances, rivalries and bitchy remarks. Astonishingly, after reading all about the film's chaotic filming schedule and all of the nasty comments that Bette Davis made to Celeste Holm, I don't start to hate the film or its stars, I love them more. Ok. So this post I am going to dedicate to Bette Davis' off screen relationships with her cast and crew. But before I do, here is a clip from one of the most famous scenes from Eve to give yo a feel of it if you haven't seen it before, and remind you if you have.



Cast:

• Bette Davis as Margo Channing
• Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington
• George Sanders as Addison DeWitt
• Celeste Holm as Karen Richards
• Gary Merrill as Bill Sampson
• Hugh Marlowe as Lloyd Richards
• Thelma Ritter as Birdie
• Gregory Ratoff as Max Fabian
• Barbara Bates as Phoebe
• Marilyn Monroe as Claudia Caswell

Bette Davis and Celest Holm:

Bette Davis and Celest Holm didn't get on. From the first morning on set when Celest Holm greeted Bette with a "Good morning!" And Bette, cuddled up with Gary, (see Bette Davis and Gary Merrill) said "Oh sh*t. Good manners." Obviously, this was not the most charming response to such a remark, but you have to understand Bette's situation. She had an abusive husband that she was in the middle of a sticky divorce with, a boyfriend that had a Doris Day look-alike wife and a career stuck in the doldrums. If I was in that situation and Celest Holm (who irritates me so much that no words can describe) came up to me in her angelic way and said "Good morning!", I probably would not have been completely thrilled. When they were filming the scene in "The Cub Room", there was a lull in the filming process and to fill the silence Celeste said "Did you know that when the man who manufactures Pyrex, found out that people where using those Pyrex kettles to make martinis in, he stopped making them?" Gary Merrill and Hugh Marlow chuckled lightly. Bette waited for the laughter to stop. She then looked from Hugh to Gary, then lowered her eyes for effect and drawled "Really I don't know how I could have lived This long without knowing that."


Bette Davis and Anne Baxter:

Bette Davis and Anne Baxter had a wonderful relationship, despite the fact that they were playing arch Nemesis's in the film. In the late 1970s while towling herself dry at Anne's house, Bette discovered a lump in her breast. Anne Baxter was one of Bette's few close friends outside of her family along with Olivia De Havvilland, and Mary Astor.


Bette Davis and Edith Head:

Edith Head designed Bette's wardrobe for the film, but no one Else's. They had a very good working relationship, and one of my favourite costume-department behind the scenes anecdote shows Bette's thoughtfulness and sweetness that Sam Staggs was keen to hide in his book.

Bette Davis looked at herself quizzically in the mirror as she modeled her dress for the all important cocktail party scene (clip above). The scene was due to be shot in about ten minutes time. Someone had measured the top half of the dress all wrong, and from the waist up, the dress just flopped around helplessly about Bette's shoulders. Edith was devastated. "Don't worry, as costume designer, I'll take all the credit for the fiasco." Edith steadied herself and headed for the door, when Bette exclaimed "WAIT! Turn around and look, Edith." She had slipped the dress off her shoulders and the dress hung beautifully. It was a perfect fit. Edith hugged her and started to stitch it into place.

Bette Davis and Gary Merrill:

Bette Davis and Gary Merrill fell in love at the moment they met. From then on it was Bette and Gary against the world. Or the rest of the cast and crew, anyway. Although it was her longest marraige at ten years, it turned nasty towards the end. After they adopted two children, Micheal and Margot Merrill, and Gary adopted B.D. Davis, he started to turn alcoholic and Bette filed for divorce. Margot was disabled and is still institutionalized to his very day.


Bette Davis and Joseph L. Mankeiwicz:

Joseph M. whith Katharine Hepburn on the set of Suddenly Last Summer

They had a pretty stable working experience and had lots of good ideas together. When Bette downs her martini, heads for the staircase and waits before speaking the immortal line, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night!", she said it was to "show the audience that she was collecting more venom." Well, whether it was for that purpose or just for emphasis, it was all her idea. After her stroke of genius they had a conversation that went like this:

Joseph M: I'm still waiting for you to start directing the picture. Eddie Goulding (Bette's director in lots of her films) thinks your a "hideous creature."

Bette D: (Deep laugh. Tosses head back.) Mr. Goulding is a genius movie maker. But he also liked to act. He would act out your part for you. And I was difficult because we disagreed on almost everything. 90% of the time I thought that the way I was portraying the woman I was playing, was better than the way he was.

I hope you enjoyed my War And Peace post,
~Bette

Another Day, Another Movie

I have just read the funniest news story that I have ever read in my entire life. Here is a link to the story. Basically a woman dressed up as a tomato to boost healthy eating (or something) at a local council garden party, and the mayor walked along, thought "hmmm that tomato looks like a good thing to leapfrog over!" and whilst trying to jump over her, his knee caught her head and she suffered a slipped disc. She was given £24,000 as compensation!

Moral of the story: never dress up as a tomato for a council garden party. The mayor just might break your neck. Not that anyone will be doing that anytime soon. I hope. It reminded me of the conversation from Tootsie where Micheal Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) is begging his agent (Sydney Pollack) to get him a part in something, and his agent accuses him of being unreasonable. The conversation goes like this.

Agent: "I can't even put you up for a commercial! You played a Tomato for 30 seconds and they went a half a day over 'cause you wouldn't sit down!"
Micheal Dorsey: "Yes. It wasn't logical."
Agent: "YOU WERE A TOMATO! A TOMATO DOESN'T HAVE LOGIC! A TOMATO CAN"T MOVE!"
Micheal Dorsey: "That's what I said! How am I supposed to sit down! I was a juicy sexy beef stake tomato! I was the best eggplant, the best cucumber. I did a Waldorf salad that knocked the critics on their ass!"
Agent:"Micheal, I'm trying to stay calm here. You-you are... a wonderful actor."
Micheal Dorsey:"Thank You."
 Agent: "But you're too much trouble. Get some therapy."

Sydney Pollack and Dustin Hoffman dressed as a woman

One of the funniest movies ever made. I laugh just thinking about it. Dustin Hoffman dresses up as a woman to get a job as a hospital administrator in a hospital soap opera, and ends up falling for the woman who plays the nurse (Jessica Lang).

Here is today's review.

A Letter To Three Wives

Cast:

• 	Jeanne Crain as Deborah Bishop		Jeffrey Lynn as Bradford "Brad" Bishop
  	Linda Darnell as Lora Mae Hollingsway		Paul Douglas as Porter Hollingsway
  	Ann Sothern as Rita Phipps		Kirk Douglas as George Phipps

  Thelma Ritter as Sadie (uncredited)
• Celeste Holm as Addie Ross (voice) (uncredited)

Plot:
Three typical American suburban housewives receive a letter addressed to the three of them from their "best friend" Addie Ross (Celest Holm voice-over, surprisingly, uncredited), saying that she has left town with one of their husbands, but doesn't say which one. The first wife, Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain) reacts with instant suspicion as we see her flashback. It shows her and her husband first meeting his friends Rita (Ann Sothern) and George Phipps (Kirk Douglas) and Lora Mea (Linda Darnell) and Brad Hollingsway (Jeffrey Lynn). They all make subtle references to Addie's "class", but no one says anything that might overtly lead to suspicion of an affair. The same thing happens to both other wives, but each husband has their own link to Addie.


The Review:

The DVD cover says "three very different marriages. One of convenience, one stable, and one filled with lies and suspicion," And it's dang right. Never have I seen such different marriages! My favourite wife is by far Ann Sothern, who vaguely reminds me of Agnes Moorhead. All the other actors (if anyone can tell who they are!) are very good. I love Kirk Douglas ("I am Spartacus!").

The film was directed and written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and he won both of those Oscars that year. On the set of All About Eve he was waiting around for some rain to come so that Celest Holm could do her scene where she meets Eve: but it didn't come. So they set up some hoses, and got ready to start filming. Sat on a ladder, he called out "Ok, lets have the rain!" But before the prop men could turn on the hoses, clouds moved in and it started to rain. Ann Baxter (Eve Harrington, the villain of the story) said to Bette Davis (Margo Channing, the "hero" of the story)  "Even god has heard of Joe's two Oscars."

Here is a picture of Ann Sothern that is so far away from her in A Letter To Three Wives, that I found it quite strange.

~Bette