"All About Eve" vs "Sunset Boulevard"

Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of a stripper.

Also, the choice between Showgirls and All About Eve would be a whole lot harder than the choice between Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve.

or the choice between Miss Caswell and Phoebe.

damn, Eric sort of incorrect twice in one post.

I've re-watched Sunset Boulevard in the last year and major sections of it just don't hold up against its admitted peaks.

yep

All About Eve def a more tightly plotted/constructed film

as KJB sez "story is for boys"

we all know the Nancy Olson passages in SB are unbearable

sort of like the whole of Showgirls

as KJB says, All About Eve is superior

The voice-over on SB numbs me after forty-five minutes. Stop talking and use the fucking camera.

depends what you're shopping for. SB is messier and that's compelling. I like AAE a lot too. xp

Mankiewicz basically used the camera to record actors talking.

Lots of images stick in Sunset Blvd! The chimp funeral, the leering shop assistant, Norma under the projector beam in her screening room...

I like SB too but it's a film requiring Gothic corn but stuck with a director who remains a writer at heart, and a writer whose cynicism is, as usual with cynics, a hard-boiled kind of sentimentality.

and Holden looks beautiful in it! you want an image that sticks? The camera following Holden pulling himself out of Norma's pool. I think Wilder himself had a hard-on.

"It was all very queer. But queerer things were yet to come..."

Wilder is not a cynic.

Mankiewicz is also a writer at heart for God's sake.

it's a film requiring Gothic corn

so, Andrew Lloyd Webber?

I can accept Mankiewicz's almost as limited range as a filmmaker because he's directing a film about The Thee-a-thuh. As you wrote, put the camera down and let the actors run with their awesome lines.

The one bit of visual eloquence I remember in AAE takes place in the third act: when Addison follows Eve into her hotel bedroom to yell at her some more while the camera discreetly lingers by the door. Tarantino must have seen it and approved.

You don't think the last shot of the movie was at least aiming for visual eloquence?

Sure! No doubt we can find others.

I wouldn't call the last shot eloquent so much as "apt" but that's a quibble.

we must mention that AAE was also turned into a Broadway musical (starring Lauren Bacall) circa 1970

el·o·quent
ˈeləkwənt/Submit
adjective
clearly expressing or indicating something.

Charles Strouse vs. Andrew Lloyd Webber

Nobody answer that.

Kinda intriguing that the musical's producers could only buy the "Eve" short story rights, until Fox changed their mind very late in the game. Applause! has no Addison DeWitt, but a producer (played by the newly dead Robert Mandan) and a gay hairdresser.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applause_(musical)

Charles Strouse vs. Andrew Lloyd Webber

― I Never Promised You A Hose Harden (Eric H.)

salted peanut vs cocktail

you're all braver people than me as i cannot choose between either of these movies

noted

https://variety.com/2019/legit/reviews/all-about-eve-review-gillian-anderson-lily-james-1203139714/

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6709-all-about-mankiewicz

my main problem with Eve is... Eve.

It takes way too long for these theatre sophistos to wake up to her agenda, Thelma Ritter aside.

Marilyn doesn't quite nail her "unhappy rabbits" line, but it's still a good one.

there's a CC supplement on "the real Eve" in which the fur really flies via audio tape

Often I ask if Anne Baxter plays Eve as a lousy actress who persuades people who wanted persuasion.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/sunset-blvd-star-nancy-olson-wilder-holden-why-she-walked-away-stardom-1290825

91!

I watched All About Eve for the first time last night and, alarmingly, did not like it very much. I'm not at all happy about this.

yeah examine your values

do better

Sunset Blvd is definitely the winner with the sound off.

(it's a MOVie after all)

yeah examine your values

haha!

In my defence, I did watch Sullivan's Travels for the first time tonight and was moved by it.

as in the late husband's portrait's moving eyes

you don't know me.

I'm not sure I've ever seen "All About Eve," tbh, for no particular reason, but it's been on my short list of movies to watch with my daughter. In this case I'm wondering what we will *both* think, in real time.

Sunset Blvd obv but I love the packed cast of Eve. Monroe is very funny. Though whenever I see George Sanders now I just think of Psychomania. He didn't have to die! They're both good!

i suspect film-y types are required by law to prefer sunset blvd, and it probably is the better movie, but i'd rather watch all about eve again, it's just a blast.
― J.D., Tuesday, October 17, 2006 2:24 AM (thirteen years ago)

i still feel this way!

I like morbs' post that "Sunset is the most fun vampire film of its era."