Screening: All About Eve at the Los Angeles Theatre

As part of its annual Last Remaining Seats program, the Los Angeles Conservancy presented the classic All About Eve at the beautifully ornate and historic Los Angeles Theatre on Broadway in Downtown L.A.  Renowned film critic and historian Leonard Maltin introduced the film to the 2,000 strong audience.

All About Eve (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1950)

Starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe and Marilyn Monroe

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the short story 

"The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Sanders), Best Screenplay, Best Costume Design (Black & White) and Best Sound Recording

Also nominated for Best Actress (Davis and Baxter), Best Supporting Actress (Holm and Thelma Ritter), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (Black & White), Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography (Black & White) and Best Music/Scoring

Margo Channing (Davis) is a star of the New York theatre.  As introduced by Addison DeWitt (Sanders), she is a great star, a true star.  But she is also a star who has just turned forty years old and that's a problem for an actress, even one as great as Margo.  It doesn't help that Margo's director/boyfriend Bill Sampson (Merrill) is a distantly young thirty-two.

In the midst of all this greatness turns up a mousy, devoted uber-fan who never misses a single Margo Channing performance.  The ever-humble Eve (Baxter) is brought into the golden inner circle of her idol's life by Karen Richards (Holm), the non-industry wife of Lloyd Richards (Marlowe), Margo's go-to playwright.  Eve's tragic life story of a poor, boring existence made meaningful by a small-town theatre company, only to be dashed by the World War II death of Eve's husband touches Margo so much that she takes the waifish fan into her life and home.  The unassuming girl quickly becomes an indisposable friend and assistant.

But as time goes on, Eve makes moves into Margo's personal and professional lives, eventually persuading Karen to pitch her to Margo's producer as the star's new understudy.  By now Margo feels threatened by her youthful charge and things reach an ugly head when Bill returns home from a brief stint in Hollywood during a maudlin party in which Davis as Margo, after arguing with Bill about "the kid" utters the immortal line to her guests: "Fasten your seatbelts.  It's going to be a bumpy night!"

As the story progresses, Eve is revealed to be anything but the humble angel she has presented herself as.  She manages to tear apart both Margo and Bill as well as Karen and Lloyd.  Unable to seduce Bill, Eve moves on to the weaker Lloyd, who she persuades to leave his wife for her, envisioning for them a future as a Broadway super-couple.  However, in her quest for stardom Eve has enrolled the assistance of the deceptively civil but ultimately vicious Broadway critic DeWitt, and he will make her pay for her transgressions with Lloyd Richards.  To DeWitt, he and Eve are cut from the same cloth - ruthlessly ambitious, utterly devoted to the theatre and disdainful of their fellow man, unable to love or be loved, and therefore strangely meant to be together.  The scene where DeWitt rips Eve apart by exposing her true backstory and destroys her ambitions as the future Mrs. Lloyd Richards, followed by him forcing her to admit they are meant to be together is one of the all-time horrifically great scenes ever committed to film.

And I loved it at the end, when Davis uttered the much less famous but no less awesome line to Baxter, "I wouldn't worry about your heart, my dear. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be."  The Los Angeles Theatre erupted in delighted applause.  Take that Eve, you bitch!!!

Some All About Eve facts and trivia:

• Claudette Colbert was originally cast as Margo, but had to drop out after injuring her back shortly before filming began and Davis stepped in.  Other actresses considered for the role included Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, Susan Hayward, Ingrid Bergman, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford and Gertrude Lawrence.  Other actresses considered for Eve included Jeanne Crain, who had just appeared in Mankiewicz's previous film, A Letter To Three Wives, and Donna Reed.
• All About Eve earned fourteen Oscar nominations, the most ever by a motion picture.  This record has never been exceeded and was only equaled decades later by Titanic.
• Tallulah Bankhead was widely considered to be the real-life inspiration for Margo Channing.  While Davis based her performance on the larger-than-life Bankhead, author Mary Orr personally told Bankhead that Margo was not based on her.  Bankhead was reportedly not amused by this news.
• Davis' husky voice was the result of screaming matches with her then-husband, William Sherry, as their marriage was deteriorating.  She fell in love with her co-star Merrill during filming.  Davis and Merrill eventually married and the result was a ten-year roller coaster ride that ended in divorce.  During their marriage they adopted a daughter they named Margot, who was later found to suffer from mental retardation so severe that she was institutionalized.  They also adopted a son, Michael.  Davis' daughter by Sherry, B.D. Sherry (later known by her married name of B.D. Hyman) would go on to write My Mother's Keeper, in which she detailed a chaotic and dysfunctional life with Bette, who disowned her as a result.
• The film was originally titled Best Performance.  The title was changed by Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck, who took the new title from Addison DeWitt's opening monologue.
• Future superstar and icon Marilyn Monroe made one of her early appearances in this film.  She played a ditzy blonde aspiring actress making nice with a producer in the position to help her career.  Other actresses considered for the small role were Angela Lansbury and Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was married to George Sanders at the time.
• Mary Orr's story The Wisdom of Eve was based on a real-life incident involving Austrian stage actress Elisabeth Bergner.  In the short story, which originally appeared in Cosmopolitan in 1946, Eve's exploits are detailed by Karen, who at the end is revealed to be on her way to Reno to obtain a divorce from her playwright-husband, whom Eve has stolen away from her.
• A Broadway musical version of the film, titled Applause, opened in 1970 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical.  It ran for almost 900 performances.  Margo was first played by Lauren Bacall; when Bacall left the show she was replaced by Anne Baxter.
• All About Eve has a staggering 100% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

The Los Angeles Theatre is located at 615 Broadway in DTLA, on the same block as Clifton's Cafeteria, which is currently closed for remodeling.  Before the film began we were informed that the family that owns the Los Angeles Theatre also own a couple other historic theatres in the area and they are committed to restoring those to their former glory as well.  The DTLA renaissance hasn't quite made it to Broadway yet, but with the restoration of Clifton's and the old movie houses, hopefully it won't be long until it does.

Some shots of the interior (unfortunately not great quality as I took them with my phone):

Links/sources:
All About Eve on imdb - Joseph L. Mankiewicz on imdb - Bette Davis on imdb - Anne Baxter on imdb - George Sanders on imdb - Celeste Holm on imdb - Gary Merrill on imdb - Hugh Marlowe on imdb - Thelma Ritter on imdb - Marilyn Monroe on imdb - All About Eve on Wikipedia - All About Eve on Rotten Tomatoes - Bette Davis: The Official Site

James Ellroy's description of noir:

"You're fucked."

Well, he's right.  And I wouldn't have my noir any other way.  It isn't supposed to be pretty.  It's supposed to be dark and shadowed and desperate.

Whether his writing is or isn't your taste, you can't argue that as a writer, Ellroy knows his stuff.  There's a reason he's Ellroy and you and I are not.

This exists

Byyyyyeeeee!!!

Blessed are the weird

H/T to Sun Gazing.

It's been two years...

My Dad passed away two years ago today.

I swear if they have one of these in Southern Cal, I'm going

Oakland hosts Internet Cat Video Festival.

OMG!!!

...Teddy was among several cats who accompanied their owners to what could be easily described as a feline lovefest. On Saturday afternoon, thousands of people turned out for a block party featuring local bands dressed up as cats, comedians telling cat jokes and even a troupe of cat-themed dancers...

...But the real attraction came just after sundown, when a 70-minute reel of the most popular cat videos on the Internet was beamed onto the side of a 10-story building here in the city’s historic downtown district. The clips, compiled by Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center for its inaugural cat video film festival last summer, featured everything from cats behaving badly to a feline cast as a depressed French existentialist...

BTW, I have to say that I think the article's author was a little lazy, at least as far as identifying these famous cats.  The depressed French existentialist is the world famous Henri, le Chat Noir, while the cat in the accompanying picture is obviously OMG Cat.  On the other hand, it's Yahoo "News", so I guess should know to lower my expectations by now.

We seriously need a Cat Video Fest in L.A.  I'm leaving Sophie home, though.  Her continued failure to become an internet sensation means no extracurricular activities for her.  Not that I think she cares.

Six-Word Memoirs

Found this on Writer's Digest's annual list of top websites for writers: Six-Word Memoirs.

You can also do six words on a variety of other topics.

Here are the ones I submitted:
On life (memoir): Almost a late bloomer.  Almost there...
Advice: Common sense.  Not that common actually.

I'll be going back to that one for more.

And the day started off so well...

I'm not familiar with TSN's The Panel, nor was I ever the target audience for the Hangover movies, but this vid that was unleashed on the hockey faithful this morning cracked my shit up nevertheless:

Two observations: I love to think that Kopi answers his phone like this in real life ("Anze Kopitar here. Stanley Cup champion.") and coach at the end is just utterly priceless ("That's what you get for picking the Canucks last year.")

Then the shit that was Game 1 of the Kings Stanley Cup playoffs happened.

And then I had the following Twitter convo:

I may have tempted fate there.  Having said that...

The postseason is young.  GO KINGS GO!!!

Greenlight this now. NOW. PLEASE.

James Ellroy shopping L.A. Confidential sequel series.

Yes, please.  OH PLEEEEEEEASE!!!

L.A. Times Festival of Books - Inside Hollywood

This panel featured moderator Margaret Woppler, Alex Espinoza (The Five Acts of Diego Leon), Adam Braver (Misfit), Matthew Specktor (American Dream Machine) and Nina Revoyr (The Age of Dreaming)

Alex Espinoza:

• Became interested in Hollywood's transition from silent films to talkies.  Silents could be used worldwide, but sound required foreign-language versions to be shot.  During this period the "Latin Lover" was popular with filmgoers.  However these stars were not necessarily treated as well by Hollywood as their Caucasian counterparts.
• In discussing the layers and complexity of reinvention of self, he mention how early Hollywood would "Latinize" actors who looked the part, even if they weren't Latino.  He told about the silent star studio executives dubbed Ricardo Cortez, who was actually a Jewish New Yorker born Jacob Krantz.
• Like many of the "Latin Lovers" of early Hollywood, Espinoza was born in Mexico and eventually moved to Los Angeles.

Adam Braver:

• Misfit focuses on the last weekend of Marilyn Monroe's life, especially in terms of what Hollywood does to people, their identity and need to reinvent themselves.
• Attracted to Marilyn as a subject because she was a great, real-life complex character.  He felt the key to writing someone like her is finding the core human part of a character.

Matthew Specktor:

• His father was legendary Hollywood agent Fred Specktor, whose clients included Gene Hackman and Robert De Niro.  Because Hollywood is constantly depicted negatively, he wanted to describe a place inhabited by real people.  In American Dream Machine, the stars are in the background and the experiences of the fictionalized agents sons are not limited to Hollywood.

Nina Revoyr:

• The Age of Dreaming is about a Japanese former silent star who is tracked down by a young reporter with a script for him.  He is excited about a comeback, but hopes no one looks too deep into his past.
• Sessue Hayakawa was an inspiration.  Despite his stardom, like the Latin Lovers, Asians were also not treated well by Hollywood.  In addition, growing anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. at the time meant that Hayakawa was limited to sinister and villainous roles.  This created animosity toward him back in Japan, where his countrymen felt that his roles contributed toward negative Japanese stereotypes.  Revoyr wanted to explore the idea of being hugely successful in an industry that doesn't accept you, and the personal cost of making the necessary compromises to attain that success.

The shortest short-story contest ever

Via Gotham Writers Workshop, it's the Very Short Story Contest!

It may be apocryphal, but the story goes that Ernest Hemingway won a bet by writing a short story that ran fewer than ten words. One version of the story places the bet at the famed Algonquin round table. Whether true or not, there is an actual bet-winning short story attributed to Hemingway:

For sale. Baby Shoes. Never worn.

You have to admit its pretty good. It builds, and theres a whole world of background and emotion lurking beneath those words.

We would like to make a similar bet with you. Write a great short story in ten words or fewer. (You may use a title, but that goes into the word count.) Submit it to our contest. Entry is free. Winner of the bet gets a free Gotham ten-week workshop.

You also have a very short time to enter - the deadline is tomorrow!!!

L.A. Times Festival of Books - Crime Fiction: City of Angels

This fascinating Southern California-themed panel of was comprised of moderator Paula Woods (Charlotte Justice novels), Marcia Clark (yes that Marcia Clark, and the Rachel Knight series) , Denise Hamilton (Damage Control, L.A. Times Magazine) and T. Jefferson Parker (the Charlie Hood series).  Easily the highlight of this year's FOB for me.

Marcia Clark:

• "Rachel Knight was an avatar" based on Clark's own experience in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, but way cooler.  For example, Clark has Rachel reside at the glamorous and historic Biltmore Hotel in Downtown L.A.
• Based on her experience, homicide detectives are the funniest people she knows (particularly in terms of black humor).  She cited a sign in the LAPD homicide bullpen that reads, "Our day begins when your day ends".
• Her latest novel explores what it's like to be in the middle of a media circus, something Clark, as a major player in the O.J. Simpson trial, knows all too well.
• Noted that "we live longer lives" and so have time for more than one career.
• She has a deal with TNT to develop her books as a 1-hour drama series.

Denise Hamilton:

• With sex scandals all over the news, she wondered what it would be like if you were one of the people involved and had a deep, dark secret that would destroy you if it was revealed.  
• As part of her research she asked a friend who works in Public Relations if they had ever turned down a client.  The answer: Kim Jong Il, although they were impressed that he'd heard of them.  Hamilton also asked if they had to believe that a client is innocent.  The answer was no, but they still have to be able to maintain their firm's professional rep.  This was the reason they also turned down Michael Jackson - it would have hurt their credibility with clients.
• Considers her work "surf noir" that explores the dark side of Southern California's beach culture.

T. Jefferson Parker:

• Many people in law enforcement want to write because they have such great stories.  His connection to this was a neighbor who was the Forensics Director of the ATF's Orange County office.
• His latest Charlie Hood novel is his last with that character.  He wants to start a new series, although he hasn't figured out yet what it will be.  Admitted that ending a seires was "a little scary", but the fun part of writing is finding out what happens next.
• When he writes, he feels like he's along for the ride, rather than in charge.
• Has 17 million books in print.