MovieChat Forums > All About Eve (1950) Discussion > I don't get how anyone believed Eve in t...

I don't get how anyone believed Eve in the first place...

posted 7 years ago by jirinak
6 replies | jump to latest

At least the way Anne Baxter plays her, she's so obviously phony in that cloying breathy way from the get-go. They're all supposed to be veteran theatre people and it's only Birdie who doesn't completely fall for it?

I still thought it was a great movie, but it required a lot of suspension of disbelief, more than you'd expect for a script riding on that plot point. I couldn't help but cringe or roll my eyes every time Eve said anything.

And I don't understand how Anne Baxter was nominated for an Oscar, unless she was supposed to seem that obviously phony for some reason? But it would've worked even better if she was more convincing, so that doesn't make any sense (and I know the Oscars don't mean anything, anyway).

On top of that, we never see Eve acting on stage so you just have to take the script's word for it that anyone would even want to see her act. She may be scheming, but she's just boring fake overly sincere scheming with zero charisma to me. And the idea that she could replace the lively spirit that Bette Davis has as Margo in anything just seems totally preposterous.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

Good old Birdie! She saw right through her! So did I.... the first time I saw it.
All I can think is that the theater people were so into theatrics so they took her at her word at first.

I figure that we never saw Eve act because Eve NOR Anne Baxter really didn't have all of those qualities they all raved about. We just had to take their word for it.
I am not knocking Anne Bancroft. I enjoy many of her other performances. She's just so phony in this....... but then again, isn't that what is supposed to come across?
She is one character I love to hate.

[–] Gubbio (3893) 4 years ago

she's so obviously phony in that cloying breathy way from the get-go.

When I watched this again last night, I was struck by how phony, breathy, and dramatic Eve's every word was. I don't know anyone who speaks at way in real life

Baxter must have been directed to speak that way, but it all came off as an affectation.

[–] [email protected] (1826) 9 months ago

A lot of Americans are like that though. They are the top 1% of the elite in the world yet when you hear them, they claim to be the most victimized and suffering of all. So it seems realistic even today.

[–] Gubbio (3893) 9 months ago

I Don't get your point. You seem biased against Americans. They don't express themselves like Eve. Eve was total affectation.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

I would expect anyone on that level of the entertainment industry to be so completely up their own ass, that they barely notice that other people exist!

The self-absorbed don't pay enough attention to other people to be very perceptive, which it's why Birdie is the one to see through her bull from the get-go. Unlike Margo, she needs to pay close attention to other people to get through life.

[–] [email protected] (1826) 9 months ago

America and the west, even veteran actresses were more naive back then. Besides, she could very well ha e been an innocent, in how she acted. I'm from Asia and westerners tend to think the worst of people. Even innocence. A virgin for westerners is but a technicality, nothing to do with innocence. Whereas in Asia a virgin means innocence. So you can see that the west views everything with a tinge of the profane, not so much back then.