All About Eve’s Story Needed A Major Change If It Was Going To Be Made Into A Movie
By Lyvie Scott/Sept. 19, 2022 1:33 pm EST
Every truly great film has to start with a great story, and “All About Eve” is no exception. The 1950 film follows the feud between a veteran actress and the titular protege who tries to steal her career — and succeeds in nearly every way that matters. The premise was lifted from a short story written by Mary Orr, “The Wisdom of Eve,” which was published in Cosmopolitan in 1946. That too was a juicy story, filled with twists, turns, and no shortage of acerbic wit. And it essentially sells itself, especially for an adaptation on film.
In the late ’40s, the story was making the rounds with every major studio in Hollywood — catching the eye of future “All About Eve” director Joseph L. Mankiewicz — but it took three long years to drum up genuine interest in adapting it. It may sound ridiculous now, but “The Wisdom of Eve” was virtually radioactive in its original form, at least to the strict standards of Golden Age Hollywood. It has a very different ending from the film that would eventually take inspiration from it, and if it hadn’t been changed, we may never have gotten “All About Eve” as we know it today.
In the late ’40s, the story was making the rounds with every major studio in Hollywood — catching the eye of future “All About Eve” director Joseph L. Mankiewicz — but it took three long years to drum up genuine interest in adapting it. It may sound ridiculous now, but “The Wisdom of Eve” was virtually radioactive in its original form, at least to the strict standards of Golden Age Hollywood. It has a very different ending from the film that would eventually take inspiration from it, and if it hadn’t been changed, we may never have gotten “All About Eve” as we know it today.
All about that original ending
The wisdom of Mankiewicz
Mankiewicz’s script does just that. The writer-director wasn’t the biggest fan of Hollywood’s stiff moral code, but he found his own way to condemn Eve’s transgressions against Margo and Karen. In “All About Eve,” Eve does succeed career-wise, winning a prestigious stage award and scoring that aforementioned ticket to Hollywood. But she fails to seduce Karen’s husband, and instead finds herself ensnared by the theatre critic Addison DeWitt, who — thanks to a little investigating — knows the truth about Eve’s shady origins and could tank her career by sharing her secret.
