All About Eve
- NOT RATED
- Year:
- 1950
- 138 min
- 1,264 Views
FADE IN:
INT. DINING HALL - SARAH SIDDONS SOCIETY - NIGHT
It is not a large room and jammed with tables, mostly for
four but some for six and eight. A long table of honor, for
about thirty people, has been placed upon a dais.
Diner is over. Demi-tasses, cigars and brandy. The overall
effect is one of worn elegance and dogged gentility. It is
June.
The CAMERA, as it has been throughout the CREDIT TITLES, is
on the SARAH SIDDONS AWARD. It is a gold statuette, about a
foot high, of Sarah Siddons as The Tragic Muse. Exquisitely
framed in a nest of flowers, it rests on a miniature altar
in the center of the table of honor.
Over this we hear the crisp, cultured, precise VOICE of
ADDISON deWITT:
ADDISON'S VOICE
Distinguished Achievement is perhaps
unknown to you. It has been spared
the sensational and commercial
publicity that attends such
questionable "honors" as the Pulitzer
Prize and those awards presented
annually by the film society...
The CAMERA has EASED BACK to include some of the table of
honor and a distinguished gentleman with snow-white hair who
is speaking. We do not hear what he says.
ADDISON'S VOICE
The distinguished looking gentleman
is an extremely old actor. Being an
actor - he will go on speaking for
some time. It is not important that
you hear what he says.
The CAMERA EASES BACK some more, and CONTINUES until it
iscloses a fairly COMPREHENSIVE SHOT of the room
ADDISON'S VOICE
However it is important that you
know where you are, and why you are
here. This is the dining room of the
Sarah Siddons Society. The occasion
is its annual banquet and presentation
of the highest honor our Theater
knows - the Sarah Siddons Award for
Distinguished Achievement.
A GROUP OF WAITERS are clustered near the screen masking the
entrances of the kitchen. The screens are papered with old
theatrical programs. The waiters are all aged and venerable.
They look respectfully toward the speaker.
ADDISON'S VOICE
These hollowed walls, indeed many of
these faces, have looked upon
Modjeska, Ada Rehan and Minnie Fiske;
Mansfield's voice filled the room,
Booth breathed this air. It is
unlikely that the windows have been
opened since his death.
CLOSE - THE AWARD on its altar, it shines proudly above five
or six smaller altars which surround it and which are now
empty.
ADDISON'S VOICE
The minor awards, as you can see,
have already been presented. Minor
awards are for such as the writer
and director - since their function
is merely to construct a tower so
that the world can applaud a light
which flashes on top of it and no
brighter light has ever dazzled the
eye than Eve Harrington. Eve... but
more of Eve, later. All about Eve,
in fact.
THE CAMERA MOVES TO: CLOSE - ADDISON deWITT, not young, not
unattractive, a fastidious dresser, sharp of eye and merciless
of tongue. An omnipresent cigarette holder projects from his
mouth like the sward of D'Artagnan.
He sits back in his chair, musingly, his fingers making little
cannonballs out of bread crumbs. His narration covers the
MOVE of the CAMERA to him:
ADDISON'S VOICE
To those of you who do not read,
attend the Theater, listen to
uncensored radio programs or know
anything of the world in which we
live - it is perhaps necessary to
introduce myself. My name is Addison
deWitt. My native habitat is the
Theater - in it I toil not, neither
do I spin. I am a critic and
commentator. I am essential to the
Theater - as ants are to a picnic,
as the boll weevil to a cotton
field...
He looks to his left. KAREN RICHARDS is lovely and thirtyish
in an unprofessional way. She is scraping bread crumbs,
spilled sugar, etc., into a pile with a spoon. Addison takes
one of her bread crumbs. She smiles absently. Addison rolls
the bread crumb into a cannonball.
ADDISON'S VOICE
This is Karen Richards. She is the
wife of a playwright, therefore of
the Theater by marriage. Nothing in
her background or breeding should
have brought her any closer the stage
than row E, center...
Karen continues her doodling.
ADDISON'S VOICE
...however, during her senior year
in Radcliffe, Lloyd Richards lectured
on drama. The following year Karen
became Mrs. Lloyd Richards. Lloyd is
the author of 'Footsteps on the
Ceiling' - the play which has won
for Eve Harrington the Sarah Siddons
Award...
Karen absently pats the top of her little pile of refuse. A
hand reaches in to take the spoon away. Karen looks as the
CAMERA PANS with IT to MAX FABIAN. He sits at her left. He's
a sad-faced man with glasses and a look of constant
apprehension. He smiles apologetically and indicates a white
powder which he unwraps. He pantomimes that his ulcer is
snapping.
Karen smiles back, returns to her doodling. Addison mashes a
cigarette stub, pops it out of his holder. He eyes Max.
ADDISON'S VOICE
There are two types of theatrical
producers. One has a great many
wealthy friends who will risk a tax
deductible loss. This type is
interested in Art.
Max drops the powder into some water, stirs it, drinks, burps
elicately and close his eyes.
ADDISON'S VOICE
The other is one to whom each
production means potential ruin or
fortune. This type is out to make a
buck. Meet Max Fabian. He is the
producer of the play which has won
Eve Harrington the Sarah Siddons
Award...
Max rests fitfully. He twitches. A hand reaches into the
SCENE, removes a bottle of Scotch from before him. The CAMERA
follows the bottle to MARGO CHANNING. She sits at Max's left,
at deWitt's right. An attractive, strong face. She is
childish, adult, reasonable, unreasonable - usually one when
she should be the other, but always positive. She pours a
stiff drink.
Addison hold out the soda bottle to her. She looks at it,
and at him, as if it were a tarantula and he had gone mad.
He smiles and pours a glass of soda for himself.
ADDISON'S VOICE
Margo Channing is the Star of the
Theater. She made her first stage
appearance, at the age of four, in
'Midsummer Night's Dream'. She played
unexpectedly - stark naked. She has
been a Star ever since.
Margo sloshes her drink around moodily, pulls at it.
ADDISON'S VOICE
Margo is a great Star. A true Star.
She never was or will be anything
less or anything less...
(slight pause)
...the part for which Eve Harrington
is receiving the Sarah Siddons Award
was intended originally for Margo
Channing...
Addison, having sipped his soda water, puts a new cigarette
in his holder, leans back, lights it, looks and exhales in
the general direction of the table of honor. As he speaks
the CAMERA MOVES in the direction of his glance...
ADDISON'S VOICE
Having covered in tedious detail not
only the history of the Sarah Siddons
Society, but also the history of
acting since Thespis first stepped
out of the chorus line - our
distinguished chairman has finally
arrived at our reason for being
here...
At this point Addison's voice FADES OUT and the voice of the
aged actor FADES IN. CAMERA is in MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT of him
and the podium.
AGED ACTOR:
I have been proud and privileged to
have spent my life in the Theater -
"a poor player... that struts and
frets his hour upon the stage" - and
I have been honored to be, for forty
years, Chief Promoter of the Sarah
Siddons Society...
(he lifts the Sarah
Siddons Award from
its altar)
Thirty-nine times have I placed in
deserving hands this highest honor
the Theater knows...
(he grows a bit arch,
he uses his eyebrows)
Surely no actor is older than I - I
have earned my place out of the sun...
(indulgent laughter)
...and never before has this Award
gone to anyone younger than its
recipient tonight. How fitting that
it should pass from my hands to
hers...
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"All About Eve" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/all_about_eve_174>.
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