The Mankiewicz Dispatches: NYFF52. ALL ABOUT EVE.

First things first: the screen at Alice Tully hall is friggin' huge. Monolithic. Way bigger than I'd imagined.

Secondly, the spectacular DCP version of ALL ABOUT EVE that spun its 1's & 0's last night looked warm and crisp, even extended to those exacting dimensions, remaining the perfect clone of celluloid it was intended.

On this, my 15th or 20th viewing of 1950's Best Picture winner, it occurred to me that Mankiewicz may have been the first to explore that most unique 20th century phenomenon, not just desire for fame but fear of obscurity, a phobia that has been spun into an entire industry known as reality television. The difference being that once upon Eve's time, such backstage backstabbing machinations were committed out of public view, secretive Machiavellian dirty work done in pursuit of one's desired goal. That script has now been flipped. Now the ugly, sordid, even sociopathic behavior one employs to achieve fame IS the goal, its own ultimate reward. Property, money, employment, all serve as anticlimax in the final episode. We are now a culture that tunes in to watch the betrayal and the two-faced treachery, not the hoisting of the trophy or the suitcase of cash, or, in Ms. Harrington's case, an award that couldn't be worth less to her if it were made of dust.

Audiences in 1950 and hence have gathered to delight at the devious proceedings that unwind in Mankiewicz's masterpiece for exactly that same reason: to see virtue compromised, loyalties betrayed, the seemingly incorruptible become just that - seeming. There is no simplistic moral victory to be had at film's conclusion. Eve isn't made to suffer ultimately, at least not in any way it's implied us NON-theater folk might comprehend. Indeed, she's sort of rewarded by the appearance (invocation?) of a younger version of herself, as she herself was perhaps the younger Iteration of Margot. We're not privy to Margot's origin story, and are therefore left to ponder whether she was once as ruthless as her younger charge. Margot sees something of herself in Eve to be sure, for no master actress of Channing's talent and experience would be taken in only by Eve's manipulation of empathy, any actor's stock and trade. The cycles are tightening, however, growing shorter, Mankiewicz seems to suggest. It took years for Margot's younger iteration to arrive as replacement, it took far less time for Eve's to do likewise. Was Mankiewicz not merely indicting the theater world, but suggesting some further accelerated poison intertwined with modern culture's progress?

Whether or no, how delightful this particular poison has made its way down our collective gullets decade after decade, as welcomely swigged as Margot's domestic juniper Drano by her party guests. How sweet this bitter a pill remains to the palate. No less a light than the director's widow, one Rosemary Mankiewicz, appeared before the gathered last night, to delight in the joy her late husband's caustic masterpiece still evokes, to bestow gratitude on a crowd and a fan base that surely felt that emotion misdirected by exactly 180 degrees, and to bid those in attendance hie on with perhaps the most famous verbal gauntlet ever offered a group of party guests: fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

My thanks to Rosemary Mankiewicz for her appearance, and for the good folks at the Film Society for indulging me on this career retrospective. Be sure to check back later today or tomorrow to read my coverage of today's unspoolings in the Mank series; the Cary Grant-starring PEOPLE WILL TALK and 1946's SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT. Excelsior!

Joe Walsh