For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, she plays an ambitious young woman who insinuates herself into the life of an aging actress. She fawns over everyone who can help her, and projects a humble manner that’s impossible for anyone to believe is genuine. But almost everybody in the movie falls for her act.
The way Baxter played her, it was obvious from the beginning (to the viewer) that she was manipulative and phony – that the character was acting a role – and to me it looked like bad acting. What I’m wondering is if this was bad acting or if Baxter played her this way so that we’d know what the character was up to.
Is it more difficult for a character to play a phony, to lie? If they lie too well, the audience won’t know they’re lying, and that might be a problem too.
I’m going to guess it’s this. If she was completely convincing people would miss the point, I think — although now that I think about it, that was exactly the plot of Single White Female; we were never certain, up to a point, if Jennifer Jason Leigh was being manipulative or not.
I’m really no expert on Method Acting, but I believe that prior to its prominence, actors assumed “roles” more literally than is common today. Maybe someone with more background on this topic could elucidate?
I’m not advocating a remake, but I’d have liked Baxter’s performance better if her true self didn’t come out until she made her play for Gary Merrill, about halfway through the movie. That would have been deliciously shocking.
(Apologies for mixing tenses there – I have trouble with tenses.)
Well, kinda. Love it or hate it, there’s no missing the parallels between ***Showgirls ***and All About Eve. ***Showgirls ***is practically a remake of AAE, only with titties.
The reason I bring this up by way of a possible answer to the OP is that one of the biggest problems that people have with ***Showgirls ***is the terrible acting of Elizabeth Berkeley, who plays the Anne Baxter character. I have long maintained, as have a number of critics who “get” what Verhoeven was trying to do (of whom there are a growing number as ***Showgirls ***continues to be critically rehabilitated as a razor sharp satire rather than a dull witted misfire) that this is exactly what Verhoeven intended. This is why he cast a bad actor in the part, as John Waters and Alfred Hitchcock have been known to do when they want a certain affect in a character.
Now, obviously, it’s a different approach to cast a bad actor and just not tell them what’s up than it is to cast a good actor and try to get them to be unconvincing on purpose. But I think the parallel is definitely there. And there’s no question that Baxter was a better actor than Berkeley will ever be (although Baxter makes herself look pretty silly playing a Mexican coquette in*** Walk on the Wild Side***; I have a feeling Berkeley would’ve pulled that role off a little more convincingly). So I vote for the “bad” acting in Eve as intentional, if a little overdone, on Baxter’s part.
Have you seen Baxter in anything else? I’ve seen her in maybe half-a-dozen other things, hamming it up with over-the-top doses of emphatic self-importance – and All About Eve was pretty much the most low-key and natural she’d ever come across as, IMHO.
The Other Waldo Pepper, I’ve seen Baxter in The Ten Commandments and thought she was fine there. Her acting style fits those 50’s Biblical epics. And I’ve seen her in The Magnificent Ambersons. I thought she was fine there too – not a standout, but okay in the part. I got a sense of “self-importance” from Baxter as Eve Harrington too, as if she thought she was stealing scenes from Bette Davis. She didn’t play off the actors – it looked to me like she was always conscious of the camera.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but it seemed to me that she was acting that way on purpose. She was very consciously kissing the asses that needed kissing because she knew Bette Davis’ character only had so much time left.
Also, I haven’t seen her other movies, and like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve seen that movie, but I seem to recall she had a distinct sounding voice that just wasn’t conducive to anything but a specific type of roll (like that one). Compare it to Marilyn Monroe. Regardless of her acting skills or looks, her voice screamed sexpot. She was never going to take on the type of roll that Katherine Hepburn or Gretta Garbo had.
While Baxter is not anywhere the top of my list of greatest actresses, when she was cast well she could do the job. That said, I’m not sure I don’t have an inkling that Mankiewicz–who was no slouch as a director–used Baxter’s “strengths” exactly as he intended. That, in other words, not unlike Verhoeven’s casting of Berkeley, one of the things Mankiewicz might’ve seen in Baxter was a certain artificiality of acting style. Certainly, you put her up against Bette Davis in her co-star-chomping prime, and Baxter’s faults as an actor would stand out in pretty high relief. All elements considered, I think the casting choices were correct.
I agree entirely. She also fits great in the campy BATMAN series, and when playing an eccentric hypochondriac, and whenever else she can go all wide-at-the-eyes and over-the-top and stage-y.
I was under the impression (from a “NY Times” article written when the movie was about to be released) that Berkley was cast because virtually every actress rejected the role and Berkley figured she had nothing to lose since she was only a supporting character on “Saved by the Bell”.
The first time I saw AAE, my impression (or maybe I’m just fanwanking) was that Eve was played a complete blank on purpose - easy to overlook and underestimate, and only becoming anything human when she was absorbing someone else’s life and characteristics. I’m not sure Anne Baxter was up to the subtleties of a performance like that, but I wonder if that is what the director was trying ot get across.
Yeah, there is a slightly husky quality to her voice. Not as obvious as Lauren Bacall or Suzanne Pleshette, but it’s there.
Speaking of Marilyn, I thought she did fine here too, and she just glowed. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
My favorite performance though was George Sanders as Addison. I almost felt sorry for Eve when he told her what her future was going to be.
My least favorite part of the movie was Eve’s acceptance speech for that award she got. Where’s that 45-second time limit when you really need it? How did she end it? Something like, “Even though I’m in Hollywood now, the theater is in my blood and I’ll be back, if you want me.” Gag!
That may be true, but it may not be: most of the publicity for the movie was created by the studio and didn’t really reflect the reality of the intent–or even the content–of the movie. In any case I’m not sure how it would change anything. Verhoeven often uses bad actors very deliberately–again, like Hitchcock and John Waters–so however he found her I’m sure he was thrilled with the casting, serendipitous or no.
Taking it in context for the era, I think she played it so that the average Midwestern movie viewer could understand.
Today, the character would be more subtle and evil.
But back then, people probably didn’t know about such people and were truly shocked and surprised to find out that “nice girl” wasn’t so nice after all!
Golly gee!
Today, we see it coming a mile away.
That’s my take on it, too. There’s a modern suspicion and cynicism (for which I primarily credit the influence of Mad magazine) that simply wasn’t extant then.
I’ve seen Baxter in several films, and I’d describe her acting as somewhere between “adequate” and “competent” and “not their first choice.” But I have to disagree with the OP on one point: I don’t believe any of the characters actually fall for her act. If it’s so obvious to us, it can’t help but be obvious to them . . . especially being the back-stabbing barracudas that they are. Margo is overdue for her comeuppance, and it’s no accident that someone like Eve shows up at just the right time. They are all in on it.
No, I heartily disagree–Birdie’s the only one who’s incredulous from the start (since Addison’s not there at the first meeting with Eve). Everyone else buys it hook, line, and sinker. The fact that the rest are locked into their hermetically sealed, self-congratulatory theatrical clique may be a reason they don’t see through the artifice the way you’d expect they would.
