After 75 years, we have known all about Eve. Did we?
More than seventy years later, modern echoes of Eve and Margo can be found in Sue and Elizabeth from Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) — though radically different in tone and genre —, proof that these stories are far from outdated, especially when it comes to women.
Sometimes, turning women against each other is precisely what allows their characters to shine even brighter. Bette Davis’s Margo Channing, a seasoned Broadway star obsessed with her own image yet terrified by the idea of being replaced, and Anne Baxter’s Eve Harrington, her seemingly selfless and devoted admirer, together form a dynamic that transcends simple rivalry. From the very beginning, the relationship between the two is charged with a subtle tension — the kind that makes it hard for the audience to distinguish what is real from what is staged. Fitting, of course, for a story set behind the theatre’s curtains.
Beneath a highly convincing mask of worship and loving obsession — which, at times, feels almost sincere — Eve is playing a double game, desperately trying to position herself as Margo’s successor, ready to claim the young female roles she is no longer considered suitable for — and to steal her man as well, the beloved and faithful Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill). On her part, Margo is not the easiest target: she dominates the scene with her unmistakable — and quintessentially Bette Davis — fierce presence: confident, sharp-tongued, unapologetically ambitious. The world is hers, and she knows her worth, refusing to let it fade into anyone’s shadow. But there is also a third player in this power game — a third woman, indeed: Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), Margo’s best friend and the wife of her director Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), the first person to meet Eve and the one who introduces her to the theatre group. These three women carry the entire film on their shoulders — it’s their men who take on the roles of mere companions (no wonder Mankiewicz’s screenplay adapts a woman’s tale, ‘The Wisdom of Eve’, written by Mary Orr in 1946).
Then why is it “all about Eve”? As recalled by the critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), who narrates much of the story, Eve is “the golden girl. The cover girl. The girl next door, the girl on the moon”. A name that is anything but accidental: Eve — the original girl, the first to be created, the sin woman responsible for humanity’s fall. Eve, a woman and all women at once. “You know all about Eve”. By the time the credits roll, that sentence takes on a new meaning. Now a crowned Broadway star, Eve returns home after the Sarah Siddons Award ceremony to find Phoebe, a teenage girl who has slipped into her apartment, claiming to be a fan who has come to profess her admiration. The audience already knows exactly how this will end. As the cycle begins again, it becomes clearer than ever: Eve is Margo, and Margo was Eve. Their fate is the same — to be struck and swept away by the tides of time, like grains of sand.
Just like a solid screenplay, the film is packed with dialogue — sharp, layered, and unforgettable. Nearly every scene offers a line that has become iconic (everyone remembers Bette Davis’s immortal “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night”). Here words, more than images, become weapons: tools of manipulation, defence, seduction — performances in themselves.
All About Eve, much like Sunset Boulevard (1950), belongs to an era in which cinema — or, in this case, its closest ancestor, theatre — begins to turn its gaze inward. After nearly half a century of existence, Hollywood’s dream factory begins to reflect on itself. Not only does the film expose the side effects of the star system, but it also questions the very idea of performance — particularly from a female perspective — and the deleterious effects that constant overexposure can have on identity and self-perception. As she ages and confronts a world that glorifies youth and reinvention, Margo struggles to separate who she is from the roles she plays. The woman and the performer merge until her authentic nature becomes elusive, perhaps even unknowable. “That’s one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not. Being a woman. Sooner or later, we’ve got to work at it. No matter how many other careers we’ve had or wanted,” Margo confesses to Karen in one of her most vulnerable moments. “So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about me”.
More than seventy years later, modern echoes of Eve and Margo can be found in Sue and Elizabeth from Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) — though radically different in tone and genre —, proof that these stories are far from outdated, especially when it comes to women. Female narratives continue to captivate and resonate, evolving and adapting with the times. A gentle reminder that, after all, “The show must go on”.
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