All About Eve: How It Beme Cult Movie (Gay Text and Subtext, LGBTQ) | Emanuel Levy

All About Eve, the Bt Picture Osr wner of 1950, is fed by the sensibily of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, a heterosexual ( fact, womanizer) wrer-director. Yet, the film and s star, Bette Davis, have been champned by gay viewers. elevatg the film to both high mp and inic stat. The whole film is stamped wh an sir-gay atmosphere, both text and subtext. The most loyal viewers have been ted gay mal, who mt have related to the text's self-ntaed theatril i, smart dialogue (wh memorable l), and sharp actg by a terrific ensemble (the film sred 5 actg nomatns, wng one for Gee Sanrs). As other crics have noted, the passg of time has only ma All About Eve seem even more alert, more clever, and more entertag. Some have even suggted that All About Eve uld be done wh an all-male st, whout losg any of s be. (The same n be said about Stage Door, The Women, Auntie Mame, and Who's Aaid of Virgia Woolf? and Travels Wh My Aunt) Some scene are more ronant than others wh their double-entendr. When Margo fds out that her lover-director Bill is gog to Hollywood to do a picture Unr Zanuck, the head of Fox (which produced All About Eve), she throws a tantm, acpanied by a throwaway gay le: "Zanuck, Zanuck, Zanuck--what are you too, lovers? He repli: "Only some ways." Then there is the character of the acerbic cric, Addison DeWt (played wh panache by Gee Sanrs, a hetero actor who won the Bt Supportg Actor Osr). The wty and bright DeWt--"that venomo fishwife"--is seen by some as a more typil character that the gay Brish actor Clifton Webb uld and should have played. In fact, Zanuck and Mankiewicz nsired Webb for the part, after the latter excelled himself the 1944 Lra (another movie that uld be rema wh an all-male st). Webb was extremely popular star at the time, strikg box-office gild for Fox his Mr. Belver edi (Cheaper by the Dozen) DeWt is an rrigible athete, who exprs himself an Osr Wil mo. DeWt's self- loathg, clarg at one pot his "abily to love and be loved," reprented a typil view of some gay men as they saw themselv--and were seen by the larger society. This was a stereotypil attu that would prevail up to and cludg The Boys the Band, the 1968 play and the 1970s versn of .