70 years for All About Eve
On October 13, 1950, the premiere of Joseph Leo Mankiewicz's film "All About Eve" took place in Paris.
In 1943, a premiere of a play based on the play “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” took place on Broadway, in which the famous Viennese actress Elizabeth Bergner, who had fame in the theater world comparable to the fame of Greta Garbo in the movie, participated. The director of the performance was Reginald Denham, who after 4 years married Mary Orr. Thanks to this marriage, Mary Orr, the future writer, and theater star Elizabeth Bergner met.
Bergner told the director’s wife her real story about how, night after night, at the exit from the theater, she was met by a young woman who looked like a waif, how the actress took pity on her, brought her to her dressing room, and then hired her as a secretary. And how it all ended.
Mary Orr outlined the story she heard from the theater star in the form of a 9-page story, “The Wisdom of Eve,” and sold the story to Cosmopolitan for $ 800 (equivalent to the current $ 8.5 thousand). Soon after this story, the NBC broadcasted a radio show that caught the eye of Twentieth Century Fox. The film company bought from Mary Orr the right to stage a film based on her story. The transaction price was 5 thousand dollars (approximately 53 thousand dollars today). The condition of the transaction was no screen credits. In the credits as the author of the literary basis appeared exclusively Joseph Leo Mankevich.
In April 1950, the entire film crew gathered in San Francisco and began filming. A week later, the group gathered in the viewing room to see what they had achieved. Everyone agreed that it was something great. And they were not wrong.
Three months after its Paris premiere in October 1950, "All About Eve" received 6 Golden Globe nominations. But I managed to win only one - Best Screenplay. In the main nominations - Best Picture and Best Director - "All About Eve" and its director Joseph Leo Mankiewicz lost, respectively, the film "Sunset Boulevard" and its director Billy Wilder.
But in the struggle for the Oscar the success of the film "All About Eve" was much more significant. The film received 14 nominations. It should be noted that for this number of nominations, the film "All About Eve" remained the record holder for several decades. Only in 1996 this success was repeated (but not surpassed!) by the "Titanic" by James Cameron. And in 2016 - the film "La La Land". Out of 14 Oscar nominations, "All About Eve" won 6, including the most important: Best Picture and Best Director.
In Europe, "All About Eve" was also a major festival success. It has won such prestigious film awards as the British BAFTA Award for Best Film from Any Source, the Danish Bodil Award for Best American Film, and the Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Award for Best Director.
Film critics' assessments of Joseph Leo Mankiewicz's film were completely unequivocal and absolutely enthusiastic. Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars and included it in his list of "Great Movies". Even the caustic Bosley Crowther from The New York Times did not find anything to complain about in this film, and issued a laudatory review of the film.
The success of this film with viewers is evidenced by both its financial indicators in the year the film was released on screens, and the assessments of modern moviegoers, exhibited on the sites IMDB and Kinopoisk. With a film budget of $ 1.4 million, the film grossed $ 8.4 million in the United States alone. 72% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film an 8 or higher rating.
Based on the film's success rates, it has a FilmGourmand rating of 9.273, placing it 104th in the Golden Thousand.
In the Soviet Union, the film was not shown, and therefore the Soviet moviegoer was deprived of the opportunity to see the young, 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe, who was only the fourth film in the film biography. Having the status of an aspiring actress, Marilyn Monroe for her role in this film received a fee of $ 500 (the equivalent of the current 5,400 dollars). Compare that to her $ 2.8 million income (equivalent to the current $ 25 million) 9 years Later for her role in "Some Like It Hot".
