by Chris Marshall:
The 1950s are here at last! That means we’re about halfway
through the Hays Code era, and we’re moving toward a period where there’s more
innovation and risk-taking in cinema than ever before. But not as far as the
Oscars are concerned! I’m in for two decades dominated by musicals (An American in Paris, Gigi, West Side Story,
The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Oliver!) and huge, sprawling epics (The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia). The
good news is that it will lead into the 1970s, perhaps the finest of all Oscar
decades.
More good news is that 1950’s winner, All About Eve, is an absolute classic, and although I’d seen it
before, it was a pleasure to watch again. In some ways, it feels like a (better
made) companion piece to All the King’s Men. Both Willie Stark and Eve Harrington rise to power—in politics and
theatre, respectively—and along the way they both abandon all scruples,
assuming they had any to begin with.
Despite all the villainy that Willie Stark was responsible
for, though, I believe that Eve is actually the more sinister of the two. In
his early years, Stark was portrayed as an honest, genuine man, one who
actually believed in the ideals he promoted; he was just particularly
susceptible to the trappings of power. Eve, on the other hand, was sinister and
manipulative from the very beginning. From the moment she first met Margo
Channing (Bette Davis), she was plotting her rise to the top.
