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All About Eve 28.3/30

Robin: before we begin, has anyone seen this before? Any strong feelings about it?

Liz: no and no. but it has Marilyn Monroe and I love her

Robin: Until yesterday, the only thing I was aware of was the title; I'm very excited to discover it's a black and white film featuring such great actresses, I'm literally bouncing in excitement at some of these names

Nick Blake: Monroe!

Liz: 3

Robin: 2

Liz: 1

Robin: go!

Nick Blake: ACTIVATE

Liz: Bette Davis!

Robin: When i gave this a test watch yesterday, I got all excited thinking it was going to be a silent movie

Nick Blake: that was a very convincing Robot Wars impression btw

Liz: (no it wasn't)

Robin: before I realised actually my sound was off

Nick Blake: any movie's a silent movie if the sound's off

Robin: BETTE DAVIS YES I am screaming i delight

Nick Blake: My Dinner With Andre, for example

Robin: I know! We could do it silent, just for a laugh

Robin: follow the progression of cinema

Nick Blake: the writer sounds familiar, I may have seen his other stuff

Robin: HOW DARE THEY QUESTION THE PULITZER

Robin: Oh wow, the comedy in this is phenomenal already - "being an actor... it is not important you hear what he says."

Liz: "Award for Distinguished Achievement"

Liz: I like

Nick Blake: these are clearly some Men of Achievement

Robin: "Minor awards are such as for writer and director" YES, THE WRITING IN THIS FILM IS DEFINITELY GOOD

Nick Blake: this man is essential to the theatre. he must be stopped at once!

Robin: "I am critic and commentator. I am essential to the teatre." THE SHADE BEING THROWN ALL OVER

Liz: I would like to take a moment to appreciate Joseph L. Mankiewicz. I already love this film

Nick Blake: good ol' Mankie

Liz: Joe Mankie

Robin: Mankie my bro

Nick Blake: I appreciate Mankie's wits

Nick Blake: who'd a thunk it, an actor quoting Hamlet

Robin: Every second of this, of the narration and of every tiny gesture they do while on screen, is so phenomenal, they've put so much thought into it

Robin: This film already deserves Best Picture

Liz: I think this project may already be over. Best Picture Ever

Nick Blake: coming out of the gate strong like a horse made of celluloid

Nick Blake: it shall never be turned into glue

Robin: like a flammable horse made of celluloid

Liz: all horses are flammable

Nick Blake: all horses are flammable. That's their beauty and their tragedy

Robin: true true

Robin: wow, A+ hivemind you guys!!

Robin: And now, Citizen Kane herself...

Liz: this is why we're getting married

Nick Blake: there are other reasons, but those are secondary

Robin: <3 <3 <3

Robin: It's mainly for the horses

Robin: FREEZEFRAME

Robin: honestly, why did we develop cinema past this point?? It's already the best

Nick Blake: record scratch

Liz: "you're probably wondering how she got here"

Robin: man, I need to watch more black and white pictures

Nick Blake: there are some quality B/W pictures to come. for instance, The Apartment (1960) which is just A++++

Nick Blake: multiple narrators? by golly, this complicates the narrative

Robin: "Where was she? I found myself looking for a girl I'd never spoken to..." GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

Liz: this is apparently Monroe's breakthrough role so I am PUMPED

Robin: "I've seen you so often, it took every bit of courage I could raise..." GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

Robin: Is Monroe Margot Channing? I'm bad at recognising ppl in different roles

Nick Blake: it feels odd to me to see Monroe's breakthrough. She's so emblematic of celebrity that it seems bizarre that there was a point she wasn't famous

Liz: Miss Caswell, a minor character who has not appeared yet

Robin: Wow, so Eve has been famous for less than a year?

Robin: Harp box in the corner like a coffin

Nick Blake: "write me one about a nice, normal woman who just shoots her husband" yes, good

Liz: 10/10 would watch

Robin: I have good news for you about the musical 'Chicago'

Liz: shoots the lover, abandons the husband

Nick Blake: Chekhov's Nice Normal Woman. If she's in the play in act 1, she'd better shoot her husband in act 3

Robin: "They're never indoors long enough" Kids these days, playing outside

Nick Blake: Like and share if you remember kids confined to the salon to practice pianoforte like a good boy

Robin: "My good friend and companion" is this Actually Gay? I feel so many good vibes

Liz: all old films are gay, it is a Fact

Robin: I'm surprised to find it post-30s, I guess

Nick Blake: If I may quote Sunset Boulevard "It was gay, alright, but it was about to get REALLY FUCKIN GAY"

Nick Blake: I think I paraphrase, but still

Robin: San Francisco, yes, okay, confirmed

Robin: The way the babble overlapped just then, and then Eve being interrupted, and then dead silence... wow. That's incredible writing

Liz: I'm enjoying the classic breathy-yet-stilted exposition

Liz: lean forward at the end of every sentence to emphasise the banality

Robin: Mmm yeah, makes it old-timey even for the time. Turns this into a proper fairytale about the magic of the stage for baby Eve

Nick Blake: One night, Margo Channing came to play and then BAM gay thoughts

Liz: "there were theatres is San Francisco" WHAAAAAA?

Robin: I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to turn this into me repeating GAY over and over, but:

- offscreen husband

- she goes to SF to meet him

- husband fridged

- instead she found the woman of her dreams who brought light back into her life

Robin: BIRDIE IS A BUTCH LESBIAN, AS ALL VAUDEVILLIANS ARE

Nick Blake: I'm sorry if I upset you, it's just how dang butch I am

Robin: GAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Liz: "what are you two, lovers?" probably

Nick Blake: "I love a psychotic" - superwholock blogger confirmed

Robin: "What are you two, lovers?" "Only in some ways." THIS MOVIE DELIVERS

Nick Blake: Only in the homosexual fashion

Nick Blake: There are probably other themes. theatre, possibly?

Liz: the theme is Eve, obviously

Liz: look at the title

Nick Blake: I thought it was All About Eaves, the Samwise Gamgee story

Robin: I really do like the Citizen Kane aspect, it looks like it really is going to be vignettes from different people about her maybe

Liz: you say Citizen Kane, I say that one scene from Mean Girls

Liz: "one time, Eve punched me in the face"

Nick Blake: Donald Duck, Ibsen and the Lone Ranger... we didn't start the fire

Robin: Loving this scene about theatre being flea circuses and cartoons too; NB, your 'non-gay theme' could be about 'what is theatre'

Robin: is it writers or is it the essential critic. broadway or television.

Robin: Her one earring is in the gay ear #confirmed

Liz: Bette Davis cannot throw, apparently

Robin: Wait, the straight ear. Oops. I take it back.

Liz: "throw that letter away" drops it but behind her head

Nick Blake: it's half about art, half about complete fascination with an individual; the impersonal and the deeply personal

Nick Blake: "Everybody can't be Gregory Peck" the attitude of a QUITTER

Robin: I like the Gregory Peck reference - I love that he's real in this fictional universe

Liz: Gregory Peck is the universal constant

Nick Blake: so Roman Holiday exists in this universe. It's a good universe.

Robin: Eve, averting her eyes from this outrageous display of heterosexuality

Robin: Wow, they're already moving in together

Nick Blake: "THE HONEYMOON WAS ON"

Robin: Hello, and welcome to our new blog 'Every Film Is Gay'

Nick Blake: If it weren't for the Hays Code, who knows how this film could have been? It's really inviting this reading in a way I wasn't expecting.

Liz: BURN THE HAYS CODE

Robin: You are going to be so happy when we reach Wings in ten years

Nick Blake: black and white is the warmest colour

Liz: quality brisk undressing there

Liz: oh no...THE UNIONS

Nick Blake: gosh darn them unions

Robin: Wardrobe mistress...

Robin: unions...

Nick Blake: a beat poem by robin

Robin: aaaw, Eve...

Nick Blake: oh no, calling a man

Robin: Do either of you know when this film is set? I suppose contemporary, if Roman Holiday exists

Nick Blake: nyet

Liz: I think the start is contemporary (read 1950)

Liz: oh ok it's based on a 1946 short story so I guess mid 40s

Nick Blake: Eve I feel may not be a good person

Robin: Mmm, if the honeymoon period is coming to a close...

Robin: I wonder how much of this is also about age - the ageing star versus the young, perfect Eve

Liz: maybe this is why Margo looked grumpy at the beginning

Robin: "a lifetime is a season; and a season, a lifetime"

Robin: much in the same way Margot is so rude to Birdie

Nick Blake: imitation is the sincerest form of I HAVE ABSORBED YOUR PHYSICAL FORM

Robin: YES loving that creepiness

Liz: she's literally wearing her old clothes...

Robin: "I'm sure that's very flattering, I'm sure there's nothing wrong with it."

Robin: BETTE DAVIS IN A SUIT THOUGH. The only thing I wanted from this film, fulfilled.

Robin: "It seems I can't think of a thing you haven't thought of." OOOOH, THE STUDENT BECOMES THE MASTER.

Liz: Eve is Anne Baxter

Liz: Bette Davis is Margo

Robin: Oops

Nick Blake: same thing

Liz: but Anne Baxter in a suit is also very good

Nick Blake: quality content

Robin: The only way this film could become better is getting these women in some trousers

Liz: ROBIN SUCH INPROPRIETY

Robin: I WANNA SEE SOME LEGS!!!

Robin: Is... is that 'french ventriloquist' joke about cunnilingus? I feel like it could be a very oblique cunnilingus joke

Liz: I googled French ventriloquist and all I found was that Britain's Got Talent dog

Robin: "I'll tell you about looking into the heart of an artichoke some snowy night in front of the fire" is what you say to someone you're about to murder

Robin: no but like... linguistics, and being good with tongues, I mean? And it was also a sex joke definitely

Liz: makes sense

Nick Blake: what is she doing with this man who is quite clearly not a lesbian

Robin: I love how Margo is really being presented as reasonable for picking up on all these things, but it still looks from the outside that she's being a ridiculous diva

Robin: and that Eve is innocent but still predatory, like a cuckoo chick

Nick Blake: that's the perfect analogy

Robin: "What about her fangs?" "She hasn't cut them yet and you know it!" Except she's currently cutting them now, on Margo!

Liz: what's Margo got against milkshakes that bitch

Nick Blake: delicious symbols of innocence

Liz: I'm 22 I want a milkshake

Robin: They're bringing boys to her yard

Nick Blake: tasty tasty childhood symbolism

Liz: but she wants girls, oh no!

Robin: Hmm, more symbolism:

Robin: - Eve taking people's clothes at the start, subservient

- Eve literally wearing Margo's clothes, donning her skin

- And now, taking ppl's coats looks like theft

Liz: It's really ridiculously well done

Liz: MARILYN

Nick Blake: "ok but this time I'm onto something" is the vibe i'm getting off Margo, which is great. It's so frustrating and fascinating

Robin: "What has, or is about to happen?" I'M GONNA MARRY THIS SCREENWRITER

Nick Blake: the first time anyone has ever said that

Robin: Wow, they got a genuine frenchman

Robin: I think I'm correct in saying "in passing" is a sex joke

Liz: has to be

Robin: "You won't bore him, you won't even get a chance to talk!" LOVE YOU, MARILYN

Robin: Margo, holding a cocktail and a cigarette and someone else's lollipop is the symbol of this film

Robin: "Play it again." HEY THERE!

Liz: do you know the story about Marilyn Monroe and pissing?

Robin: No, please tell it

Nick Blake: "I AM DYING HERE ARE MY BURIAL REQUESTS" - Margo with the sad twitter aesthettic

Liz: ok so when she was dating Arthur Miller she went with him to meet his mother, needed the toilet, and turned on the taps to cover the sound

Liz: the mother later said she was a "wonderful girl, but she pisses like a horse"

Robin: YES, I LOVE THAT STORY

Robin: There's something wonderfully meta about a film with an aspiring actress featuring Marilyn Monroe as an aspiring actress

Liz: I'm always suspicious of films about actors etc. but this is top quality

Robin: Old Hollywood was remarkably self aware

Nick Blake: I think films about actors/films/theatre should be rationed. So maybe 2 per director. You need a special permit for fourth wall breaking.

Nick Blake: Mankie's cool, he's got it right. But we need a system.

Robin: I endorse that statement

Liz: I always wondered, what order are the other walls in?

Liz: I'd probably put the back as the first wall but then which?

Robin: left, back, right, fourth?

Nick Blake: they all vie for position. It's a tough gig.

Robin: No, right, back, left, fourth. The door is on the right in all sitcoms.

Liz: that's true actually, I never noticed

Liz: ok that order wins

Robin: 1950 AND BETTE DAVIS IS CALLING OUT HOW ALL FEMALE PROTAGS ARE WAY TOO YOUNG

Robin: BETTE DAVIS, THE HERO WE NEED TODAY

Liz: YES

Liz: "I'll wear rompers and come in rolling a hoop" sass central

Nick Blake: that's my business wear

Robin: Eve is almost vampiric, isn't she? Her youth feels eternal since she too young to worry about age yet, and she is stealing Margo's lifeblood...

Nick Blake: she bite

Nick Blake: oh no

Liz: yeah it's quite interesting how much of the events are incidental to the story they're telling mostly visually

Liz: I think Marilyn might be being set up as a rival too

Robin: Sable//Gable, actors as objects

Nick Blake: "I've listened backstage to people applaud"... I think this is the key line of it

Robin: I really like this scene of two men pontificating on the stairs, and the women not merely absorbing it, but weaponising it?

Robin: Writer and critic talking about how to get ahead, while Marilyn and Eve sharpen their pickaxes and take notes

Robin: OOOOF I LOVE THIS

Nick Blake: it's marvellous just how angry Margo gets

Robin: Margo who came up in vaudeville sounding off against her friend who went to Radcliffe

Robin: Margo, so far the only one Eve has been feeding off, not understanding how no one else can see what's lurkin in the shadows

Robin: I love her

Nick Blake: she's haunted

Robin: Yes!!!

Liz: It's almost Gothic isn't it

Robin: Hitchcockian

Nick Blake: yep, Eve is her gothic double!

Robin: Yes! Eve is the Dorian Grey to her portrait

Liz: tragic heroine. mysterious draining force. double. everyone else ignoring what's happening

Liz: this is a gothic film and I'll fight anyone who denies it

Robin: And I do think she's completely innocent, Eve is, it's just that her youth and her eagerness is by definition a danger

Liz: idk I think the phonecall thing was intentional

Liz: she's trying to find a quick way to the top using Margo as a stepping stone

Nick Blake: This is a tragedy; either the brilliant Margo is exploited by a cunning trickster, or Eve is just inherently vampiric. The tragedy is either Margo's or Eve's

Robin: Love also how all those paintings (of Margo, I think?) are Ye Olde, really puts her as a symbol of the past

Robin: 'Eve is new and unpregnant'; 'I must start wearing a watch, I never have, you know!' Every line gets more and more sinister as the film goes on

Robin: "In TIME she'll be what you are" oof!

Robin: "He listened to his play as if it had been written by someone else..." Eve is stealing the play too! This is incredible!

Liz: oooh she's fighting back!

Liz: I think this confirms my gothic theory. she's fighting back against the enemy and being essentially called paranoid

Robin: Yes yes yes

Robin: Also wonderfully calling out "Hey, don't you think it's odd the way women's ages are represented in fiction?" and being told she doesn't understand and is missing the point

Liz: especially with the repeated referring to Margo as a tool or an instrument

Robin: Bette Davis putting out her cigarette defiantly on the stage is my sexuality

Nick Blake: it's very interesting how the writers and critics are men. They're interpreting and critiquing the actions of the women, putting them into context or twisting them.

Liz: oh god it's about sexism and ageism, not just gay

Robin: yesssss

Nick Blake: "a body with a voice"

Robin: It's terrifying - he's holding her down like a bad psychiatric doctor; and it's a position/framing that could be sexual, except we've never seen them interact sexually on screen, it's only been referenced

Robin: what a film

Robin: The thing is, what the man is saying is true? She is great and talented and at the peak of her career etc

Nick Blake: "I told you how to view things, will you comply woman?"

Robin: but she lives in her real world and is talking about the real truth that she is Too Old

Liz: "I don't like your explanation. Tell me what's happening"

Robin: THE SHOT OF HER CRYING ON A BED, AND ZOOMING OUT TO SHOW IT'S A BED ON A STAGE

Robin: Ooof, the man talking about how Margo knew Eve was her understudy when she came in and acted all shocked, therefore her shock must have been an act - it was an act! she was fighting! how could he not see, not interpret her technique correctly!

Robin: Men.

Nick Blake: Eve doesn't have to do anything, she's just way easier to work with now than Margo who is so angry

Robin: yup

Robin: "What time is it?" "When you asked a minute ago, it was..." Time is so good in this

Nick Blake: mortalityyyyyy

Liz: almost crashing and stranded in the snow? DEATH

Liz: HOW MUCH TIME HAVE WE GOT

Liz: "I detest cheap sentiment" No Margo it's because it's the song from the party isn't it

Robin: Did cigarettes kill you in 1950 or were they still recommended by the Surgeon General? Did they age you, at least?

Robin: Bc I think Margo is the only one we've seen smoking...

Robin: Oooof yeah, I didn't catch that about the song!

Robin: "I want him to love me, not Margo Channing." THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER

Liz: Apparently the official warning was 1964

Liz: but there were lots of reports before that from the 20s

Robin: Interesting

Liz: so I guess in the 40s it'd be a "maybe you shouldn't. maybe?"

Robin: "Gender is performative" - Bette Davis, 1950

Robin: I love Margo recognising that Eve isn't the problem, it's what Eve symbolises, but that a symbol can be dangerous in and of itself

Liz: oh god there's so much sabotage going on though

Robin: YES

Liz: and this was definitely all the friend's doing

Liz: but was she sabotaging Margo on purpose or just giving Eve a little chance?

Robin: Mmm, that and at the very start - Margo didn't want to meet a fan, but the friend wanted Eve to have a chance

Robin: UMM, I CAN'T TELL THE MEN APART, BUT ISN'T THIS THE ONE WHO IS IN LOVE WITH MARGO

Liz: YES

Robin: EVE NO

Liz: AND EVE KNOWS IT

Robin: EVE MY FEELINGS ABOUT YOU ARE CHANGING

Liz: BILL YOU ARE THE ONLY GUY NOT TO CHEAT WITH THE YOUNGER MODEL IN A FILM AND I SALUTE YOU

Robin: Yeah, but I'm not a huge fan of his reasoning being "I don't like a forward woman"

Robin: it should have been more along the lines of "MARGO AND I ARE TOGETHER"

Liz: well no, but nobody's perfect, and especially not 40s/50s men

Robin: hdu, Casablanca had already come out at this point

Nick Blake: I like Dewitt's turns of phrase

Liz: Rick is an outlier and should not be counted

Robin: Dewitt wants her to leave her bathroom door open a bit, and as a human being I am deeply uncomfortable

Liz: at least she's not actually...going

Robin: "An oasis of civilisation in the desert..." uuuhhhhh

Nick Blake: Eddie Lastname

Robin: OH he's catching her on her lies and that won't be a real theatre/husband

Robin: I thought he was just really bad at knowing things about San Francisco

Liz: implies she shed his name too, which would also be interesting

Robin: oooh yes!!

Liz: since he died in the war...

Nick Blake: he died of LIES

Robin: That adds to the performativity of her being a woman - not an innocent wife and widow, but someone self-driven and playing that up to be alluring even though she already cast him aside

Liz: THIS FILM IS SO GOOD I LOVE YOU JOE MANKY WHEREVER YOU ARE

Robin: //opinions on the film do not reflect my real feelings about human women who change their names

Robin: YES JOE MANKEY THANK YOU

Liz: I like that you spell it like the Pokémon not the adjective

Robin: Pokémon are the only screenwriters I trust

Liz: we are buffering

Robin: I paused at "what are the differences between theatre and civilisation"

Robin: which is wowza

Liz: we're at reading the newspaper "vigour of which they retain but a dim memory"

Robin: Okay, tell me when you get to civilisation!

Nick Blake: eggs

Liz: I'm thinking it might be good it when we do our ratings it's kind of a box quote thing?

Liz: words words words x out of 10

Nick Blake: nice

Robin: Yeah, that sounds good!

Liz: go

Nick Blake: civilisation!

Liz: I love when people smack newspapers in things

Nick Blake: what did the newspaper do

Liz: supported eve

Nick Blake: o no

Robin: Bill called it filth! Bill gets points back!

Liz: oh god

Liz: Eve

Nick Blake: top quality Bill

Liz: the original betrayer

Liz: YOU GUYYYYYS

Robin: EVE THE ORIGINAL BETRAYER!!!!!!!!

Robin: I was thinking all this time "Eve the original woman" but BETRAYER

Nick Blake: woooooah

Robin: Who's the serpent? Fame/theatre, or the friend, or...

Liz: I think the friend

Robin: "Eve would never ask to be in a play like that!" She would never ask...

Liz: Eve seems genuinely quiet and shy at the start, even if her backstory is a lie

Liz: although maybe Eve is the serpent

Liz: tricking the friend in betraying Margo

Robin: Yeah, I'm feeling that way too

Robin: The friend is so interesting - I'm thinking of Lyra in HDM, how she was a betrayer without meaning to be

Liz: Yes so much that

Robin: innocently leading her friend to his death

Robin: It's incredible how the movie is changing my opinions of Eve so effectively, I was completely on her side at the start and now I'm reevaluating my entire life

Robin: "In a cathedral or a ball park or a penny arcade..." He's talking about love the same way he talked about theatre at the start

Robin: I do like Bill

Nick Blake: same thing #makeuthink

Robin: Oooooooooo

Robin: MARGO GONNA GLASS EVE IN THE FACE WITH A CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE IN THE BATHROOM

Robin: I'M LIVING

Liz: god that'd be so good

Liz: the classiest thug

Robin: Karen marching straight past Dewitt without looking. Blood in the air.

Liz: did she just fucking bite a bone or is black and white making veg look like bone?

Robin: I CAN'T BELIEVE BETTE DAVIS JUST BIT A MAN'S DICK OFF

Robin: I think it was celery

Nick Blake: wowsers

Robin: This movie is such #lifegoals

Liz: I think the key is to be Margo but deck Eve early on

Robin: "Don't treat me as if I was the queen mother" - she's repeating what she criticised Margo for saying. Battle lines being drawn.

Robin: Eve's face and makeup is so intent and villainous here - a real change from her in a wet raincoat at the start

Robin: Local Girl Gets Makeover And Turns Evil

Liz: it's a tale as old as time

Liz: song as old as rhyme

Liz: don't trust fucking Eve

Nick Blake: biting off a dick

Robin: And now Eve is drawing the friend back into her fold!

Robin: This is the best chess game I've ever seen

Liz: This isn't chess this is Kal-toh

Nick Blake: reminds me of the TV Hannibal - doesn't have to say what you should do, just quietly manipulates people into saying the thing and doing the thing. no culpability

Robin: "It might have been Margo's fifteen years ago, but it's my part now!" Looking up from below, black dress//white dress, holding her hand, winged eyeliner - it looks absolutely like a deal being made with the devil

Robin: AND NOW THE BLACKMAIL BEGINS

Robin: HOLY SHIT

Liz: mmmm humble pie

Robin: :D

Robin: Shut Up About Eve, the movie

Robin: I love all the references to the title

Robin: They're all master-level

Nick Blake: it was arrested development

Robin: Eve//Evil

Liz: I think I need to see more Mankiewicz

Robin: "It means I've got a life to live, I don't have to play parts I'm too old for." I want to watch this film a thousand times, just to see more of Margo

Nick Blake: I can guess what rating you're going to give it

Robin: You're not allowed to guess, I'm an international man of mystery

Liz: gay out of sassy

Nick Blake: save it for the Austin Powers episode

Robin: Seperate beds - a comment on the relationship, or sustaining the Hays Code?

Robin: EVE IS STEALING YET ANOTHER MAN

Liz: I'd guess relationship

Robin: BREAKING FRIENDSHIPS

Liz: Hays code separate beds tend to be next to each other

Robin: LURKING IN THE SHADOWS

Robin: that's true, that's true!!

Liz: oh that's some quality green screen

Nick Blake: Yes We Are Really Walking Down a Street

Liz: No That's Not My Perfectly Flat Shadow

Nick Blake: that's my butt

Robin: Very good cut though, of them awkwardly "walking into a building" and then having them walking out of an elevator - carries the movement but doesn't make it seem completely false because there has been spacial disconnect

Liz: yeah that was just bad

Nick Blake: I feel like the film started happy and gay, and it's ending sad and straight

Robin: DEWITT IS COMING FOR LOUISA MAY ALCOTT AND HE IS MY ENEMY

Liz: WHO IS LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Robin: Wrote Little Women and also some sickass trashy scifi about throwing people into volcanos and pirates and stuff

Liz: ah ok cool

Robin: Mainly known for Little Women

Nick Blake: I can imagine being thrown into a volcano, but being thrown into a pirate is altogether beyond me

Liz: like a javelin

Liz: or a dart

Robin: Something wonderful about Eve's convo with Dewitt here - he uses his words as a weapon, and she's doing the same. Like two devils meeting.

Robin: "Killer to killer." "Champion to champion."

Nick Blake: "yes I am a critic therefore i'm going to hell"

Liz: I think killer is appropriate. They can both kill people's careers in different ways

Robin: Yes!!

Nick Blake: "you will belong to me" fucking hell

Robin: "you will belong to me" is a mix of sexism/wedding, and also of the sataic contracts that keep popping up

Robin: UUUH

Robin: DEWITT

Robin: GO FUCK YOURSELF

Liz: good post-slap face though

Nick Blake: All About Gertrude

Liz: Not a great name...

Liz: "Dead Heroes and The Women Who Loved Them"

Nick Blake: "Dead Heroes and the Women Who Loved Them", a paperback by Addison Dewitt

Robin: I read that as "dead horses"

Liz: also that

Nick Blake: Society says neigh, but their hearts say yes

Robin: "desire to love and to be loved" - interesting words from a critic, whose job is cruelty

Liz: I thought it was inability to love and be loved?

Nick Blake: if the critic can possess Eve he can possess theatre

Robin: oh, I must have misheard! That's much better!

Liz: also appropriate mind, but in a smaller way

Liz: oh it's now again

Nick Blake: aaaand we're up to the opening

Nick Blake: I feel like someone's going to die

Liz: there are guns behind her. symbolic?

Robin: The fact her whole story was fake makes it very different, the feeling when she told it how it was like a monologue from a film ten years before

Robin: GOOD EYE FOR CHECKOV'S GUN!!

Liz: I was thinking more like she'll get old eventually and be displaced by the next Eve

Robin: Yessssss

Nick Blake: it feels like her shoutouts are veiled threats

Liz: oh without a doubt

Robin: Fascinating how all the women are uncomfortable with being Eve's friend - and Bill, I suppose, who is an honourary woman by way of being a respectful and caring spouse - and all the men are seduced

Liz: I wouldn't say she seduced Addison

Robin: Mmm yeah, she lost the war on that one

Robin: She tried, but he won

Robin: I'LL BE BACK TO CLAIM IT

Liz: terminator voice

Nick Blake: "If you want me back" - the self-effacing manipulator strikes again

Robin: Interesting too that this is a film about theatre - Eve is leaving Broadway for Hollywood, Marilyn is leaving theatre for TV (which is like film but less classy)

Liz: SICK BURN MARGO

Robin: new overtaking the old

Robin: Eve talking about how the party is for the award and not for her - like Margo was saying in the car

Liz: she won, but she's still ultimately a prop

Nick Blake: thought - was Margo once an Eve?

Robin: I think so? She came up via vaudeville, but it sounds like she did the second act while Birdie - aged, over the hill - did the first act

Nick Blake: she was so angry and upset because she saw the moves that she once tried, and that means it's over

Nick Blake: the cycle continues

Robin: HERE WE GO HERE WE GO HERE WE GO

Liz: HERE WE FUCKING GO

Robin: YEAH!!!!!!!!

Robin: Extremely stalkerish behaviour, but please, it's a compliment!

Liz: It's ok because I made a club about you

Robin: "Of course, they're just movie stars..." but Eve is going to hollywood and will elevate it

Robin: Remember how Eve put Margo's affairs in order? And now here, New Kid is cleaning Eve's carpet even though Eve is so tired and the maid will get it in the morning

Liz: yeah that was quick

Robin: SYMBOLISM OF NEW KID BEING HANDED THE AWARD, HOLY SHIT

Liz: FAKE NAME, ADDISON GETTING INVOLVED

Robin: Eve looks like she's aged ten years since she picked that award up

Liz: trying on the cape like she tried the dress!!!

Robin: Yes!!!!

Robin: amazing mirror placement

Liz: she looks like the evil queen

Nick Blake: it's like a coronation or wedding

Robin: Who is Phoebe? The moon? The moon is also virginity and innocence, much like Eve in the garden

Liz: oh god oh god oh god

Liz: HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHITBALLS BOX QUOTES GO

Nick Blake: A very well crafted film about theatre, obsession, fame, men and women and many other things. Its only drawback is being a tad on the long side.

Nick Blake: 9/10

Liz: A lesson in visual storytelling. 9.3/10

Robin: Absolutely incredible film; I had high hopes and it surpassed them by miles. I want to watch it a million times to soak in every detail. The acting, the WRITING, the cinematography, it was all absolutely phenomenal. I want to write a book about this movie. I feel very bad starting out so high in this grand experiment, but I can't give it anything less than a 10 -- it had so many incredible things that I love and adore and had wonderful, complex heroines and villains, all about excellent women and wonderfully presented. No faults. 10/10

Liz: That's a big box

Robin: shit I don't actually know what a boxquote is. should it be shorter.

Liz: All About Eve: 28.3 out of 30

Robin: Surpassed my highest hopes with its wonderful writing and acting. Incredible and complex female characters. 10/10

Liz: That was so fun!

Robin: Yeah!! I really enjoyed it!!

Robin: One question, to include or not: Do you think this film could be remade/rereleased today? With the same script and everything? It's put together so wonderfully, every line has a purpose

Liz: I honestly don't like remakes as a rule and the stuff I'd change is very minor

Liz: (Also next month is All Quiet on the Western Front, so that'll be fun)

Nick Blake: I fear what would happen to the motivations of characters. Eve would be a rote psychotic character rather than a clever manipulator

Liz: that's true

Liz: a lot of what they do is interesting in part because it was the 40s

Nick Blake: based on a true story

Nick Blake: originated in an anecdote told to Mary Orr by Elisabeth Bergner

Robin: I think my favourite moment in this film, in retrospect, was Eve's life story at the start - bc it felt like a 40s emotional monologue, which must have been a little dated even by 1950, so it would have felt very much like a performance to viewers

Nick Blake: became a short story by Orr which Mankie then went "yeah i'll make this"

Robin: and idk if that would translate to now. It's a perfect film of the time

Robin: ooooooh, interesting!!!!

Nick Blake: there's specifics about the war dead which makes it hard to alter - the fake WW2 dead husband

Liz: idk there's always wars

Robin: Her husband could still have fake died in WWII, it'd just make her Definitely A Vampire

Nick Blake: but the bodycounts are different, each one's on the news

Liz: could update it a bit and say Vietnam

Robin: No one remembers each name though - you'd have to check, like Dewitt did

Liz: or, killed in a terrorist attack

Liz: go full on and say 9/11

Nick Blake: "I was working in a brewery when my husband 9/11ed"

Robin: GOSH

Robin: You know that's an actual thing?

Robin: One of the heads of, I don't remember whether it was 9/11 survivors or if it was widows, but had no connection with 9/11 at all, built a whole false identity around it

Robin: And it would gain instant sympathy

Liz: oh god I saw that

Nick Blake: how you remake it - lean into the contemporary elements. Young woman with tragic backstory goes viral, receives help from an Ellen-type figure. Whole thing was fake and she's trying to usurp her.

Robin: Yeah; it wouldn't be theatre, but something else

#all about eve #all the best pictures

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