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All About Eve

1950 film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ200299
Source-derived summary

All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It is based on the 1946 short story (and subsequent 1949 radio drama) "The Wisdom of Eve" by Mary Orr, although Orr does not receive a screen credit.

The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star, and Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, an ambitious young fan who maneuvers herself into Channing's life, ultimately threatening Channing's career and her personal relationships. The film co-stars George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, and Hugh Marlowe, and features Thelma Ritter, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Walter Hampden, and Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles.

All About Eve held its world premiere in New York City on October 13, 1950. Highly praised by critics at the time of its release, it received a record 14 nominations at the 23rd Academy Awards, becoming the only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations (Davis and Baxter as Best Actress, Holm and Ritter as Best Supporting Actress). It went on to win six awards, including Best Picture, as well as Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, Mankiewicz's second consecutive wins in both categories.

Widely considered as among the greatest films of all time, in 1990, All About Eve became one of 25 films selected that year for preservation in the United States Library of Congress's National Film Registry, deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was ranked No. 16 on AFI's 1998 list of the 100 best American films.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “All About Eve” as 1950 film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1950, 1946, 1949, 1990—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where film, Joseph and Mankiewicz can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1950 film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q200299. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1946, 1949 and 1990.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “All About Eve”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow All About Eve primary sources, All About Eve archive and film research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “All About Eve”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from All About Eve” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.