All About Eve (1950)

All About Eve (1950), written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Theater stalker makes good, causing much off-stage wreckage. A chance for the actors to act up. A fine film, although talky.

But: fourteen Oscar nominations and six wins, #16 on the AFI list of best 100 American films? Really?

Watching it I can't help thinking about the actors:

I've seen questions about Merrill's line when he hands Celeste Holm a drink: "You're a Gibson Girl." The joke is that (a) a Gibson is a type of mixed drink, and (b) The Gibson Girl was the turn of the century invention of Charles Dana Gibson, who drew pretty girls with hour-glass figures and friendly, slightly bemused expressions:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Gibson_Girl.png/220px-Gibson_Girl.png

A bunch of theater references in the film go right by me.

Available on Blu-ray, rather nice looking.

http://watershade.net/public/all-about-eve.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/AllAboutEvecastpromo.jpg