All About Eve

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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

The Sarah Siddons Award for

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

a fairy and entered - quite

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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