Scheming, back-stabbing and betrayal: Why All About Eve is as topical as it was 70 years ago

Joseph L Mankiewicz’s film may be about narcissistic theatre folk but almost everyone watching it has encountered their own pushy newcomer, says Geoffrey Macnab

Eve of destruction: (from left) Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Anne Baxter, and George Sanders (Rex)

At the start of Joseph L Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950), now celebrating its 70th anniversary, a newcomer stands up to receive her first major theatrical award. She is excited, glamorous and clearly very talented. The image freezes. By the time Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) sits down with her award towards the end of the movie, we’ve discovered just how she won it. Eve, “this girl of so many rare qualities”, this “golden girl”, this “girl on the moon”, as she is styled by the haughty theatre critic and powerbroker Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), is an amoral hustler. She has betrayed trust and trampled over those closest to her to get to the top.

What makes All About Eve so irresistible is the malevolent wit and relish with which Mankiewicz tells his Darwinian backstage tale.

In a moment of misogyny, Mankiewicz once called Eve “a conniving bitch”, but that isn’t really, or entirely, how the film portrays her. She is resilient and cunning because that is the way to get ahead. We know that the young actors we see giving their gushing speeches after winning Oscars, Baftas and their stage equivalents are probably just as ruthless as Eve. If they didn’t have her egotism and drive, they wouldn’t be up there.