All About Eve

The hubby and I watched a great movie recently: All About Eve. Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Gary Merrill. Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. TCM’s Robert Osborne says it’s one of the greatest movies ever made and we would have to agree. He also stated that it will never be remade, the way too many older movies are these days. I hope he’s right.


However, for a laugh, Hubby and I decided to take a try at casting an “All About Eve 2010”. Here’s what we came up with:



Character           1950                  2010

Margo Channing Bette Davis         Meryl Streep (badly aging star)

Eve Harrington   Anne Baxter        Cameron Diaz (scheming younger woman)

Max Fabian       Gregory Ratoff     Antonio Bandaras (foreign twit producer)

Addison DeWitt George Sanders   Johnny Depp (scheming cynical critic)

Lloyd Richards   Hugh Marlowe     Leonardo DiCaprio (pretty-boy playwrite)

Bill Simpson       Gary Merrill          Keanu Reeves (director and boyfriend of aging star)

Karen Richards  Celeste Holmes     Susan Sarandon (aging star’s best friend)

Miss Casswell     Marilyn Monroe    Renee Zellweger (empty-headed protégé of cynical critic)

Bertie                 Thelma Ritter          Shirley MacLaine (down-to-earth maid of aging star)

Phoebe               Barbara Bates        Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan (even younger scheming woman)



Wouldn’t that be simply awful?

The original is fantastic. There is no reason to ever remake this movie and, yet, I’m sure that the idea is percolating through some movie-maker’s head.
Most remakes of classic movies are dreadful and this one would be no exception.

If you haven’t seen this movie, you should make time to do so. It’s so worth it!!