All about "All about Eve": The Complete Behind-The-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made

by Sam Staggs

Book Overview

To millions of fans, All About Eve represents all that's witty and wonderful in classic Hollywood movies. Its old-fashioned, larger-than-life stars--including Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Baxter,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312252684
• ISBN13: 9780312252687
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

FOR THE FANS....

Fans of "All About Eve" will enjoy this exploration of the making of a classic. It's hard to put down and consistently entertaining. A perfect companion piece for the film as the backstage story of a backstage story of life in the theater from a life in Hollywood viewpoint. Celeste Holm's remarks are particularly revealing. You could say this is a bitchy look at a bitchy movie and it's well worth the read. Don't miss this one.

More of All About Eve

If you want more of All About Eve that goes beyond just watching it again, this is the book for you. This isn't any kind of scholarly analysis, nor is it a work of pure gossip. It's an intelligent and informed discussion of how this brilliant film came to be. It's purely shocking how every single part could have gone to several others, fascinating and sometimes sad to read how these great actors interacted with each other. Staggs also includes discussion of the short story on which the film was based, and discussion of the reality on which that story was based. I enjoyed knowing that all the more since I wasn't really familiar with Broadway Theater of the time or its great stars. We also learn that there was a sequel short story More About Eve. My only disappointment with All About All About Eve was that the author didn't see fit to include the short story, or its follow-up in the book, nor even to explain why he didn't. That would have been very interesting reading.

Wherever There?s Magic and Make-Believe?

This is an almost encyclopedic description of the greatest "backstage" movie ever made (along with "Stage Door"), 1950's Oscar-winner "All About Eve." Believe the title: This is all about the movie, and people who haven't seen the movie or who don't like it will indeed find this stuffed with too much information.That caveat aside, this is a superb book, taking both a lowbrow and highbrow analysis of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz scripted and directed film starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Thelma Ritter, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Ratoff, and Hugh Marlowe. Author Sam Staggs takes us behind the on- and off-stage scenes, to deliver the subtext of the movie: The various meanings transacted among the text--the film itself--and its audience (including those who made the film). There are brawls, feuds, insults, lawsuits, legal challenges, large egos, and a Rashomon-like recollection of who said what to whom more than 50 years ago.Staggs tells the real event on which "Eve" is based, and then traces its evolution from short story to film. (We later meet the "real" Eve Harrington, as Staggs turns sleuth). The book is juicy, but the prose is occasionally overripe: Drawing a flimsy parallel between the fire in his brother's film Citizen Kane, and the real fire that (much later) consumed a van filled with many of Joe Mankiewicz's belongings, Staggs writes: That final fire at Xanadu, and the later one that consumed the Mankiewicz moving fan, rhyme like a combustible couplet." Really now! Fortunately, such purple prose is rare. Staggs give you the dish on "the bitchiest movie ever made," but he also dwells like a scholar on technical aspects of the film, including lighting, costumes, script revisions, editing, casting decisions, and art direction, to name a few.There's an excellent section on the special meanings of the movie to some members of the gay subculture, and how it has influenced (and been influenced by) general culture as well ("Eve" was acted out in movie houses long before "The Rocky Horror Picture Show.") Again, Staggs makes a deft transition between "hi-brow" and "low-brow" culture and criticism, the former represented by his command of film semiotics, the latter by his references to "Hollywood Babylon" and porn films influenced by the movie.It's a fun and informative book, and I can't imagine any fan of the movie, or movies in general, not liking it. (But remember we're talking "fan" here). With 16 pages of black and white photos, an index, and sidebars (e.g., "No [sic] Innuendos Please-We're Anglo-Saxon" is a half-page box showing the lines cut by censors in Massachusetts and in Australia.) Highly recommended!

Low on bitchy, high on fun!

ALL ABOUT EVE is one of my most favorite films ever, and when I saw this book on the shelf at work (I won't mention which bookstore I work for), I had to get it! That was 2 days ago, and I have not been able to put the book down! All of the behind the scenes scoops and sidebars of background and tangent items makes this book a must have for not only fans of the film, but of fans of film-making. This not a book of just bitchy quips and over-adoration on the part of the author. Rather, Mr. Staggs presents a book about a film that was about the theater (or Hollywood). I cannot gush about this book enough. Please read it (I am not getting paid to say that).

A great book on Hollywood that reads like a novel.

Juicy, irresistible reading. A great story about one of the great movies that's also the story of Hollywood in microcosm. It's packed with larger-than-life characters like Bette Davis, George Sanders, Darryl Zanuck, and of course Marilyn Monroe, and plenty of lesser-known but no less fascinating figures, like Elizabeth Bergner, the real-life Margo Channing upon whom the original story was based. It's also an intriguing mystery (was there a real Eve and who was she?)with an intriguing, satisfying wrapup--and with an ironic twist at the end. And the author tells his story in a unique, dramatic way, in the form of a novel, and weaves actual quotes in a way that you'll find hard to believe--but they're all documented. Amazing. All in all, one of the best and most enjoyable Hollywood books I've ever read. It would make a great movie.