The Sarah Siddons Award
is perhaps unknown to you.
It has been spared
the sensational publicity
of such questionable honors
as the Pulitzer Prize
and those awards presented annually
by that film society.
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.
However, it is important that you know
where you are and why you are here.
This is the dining hall
of the Sarah Siddons Society.
It is the annual banquet and presentation
of the highest honor our theatre has:
the Sarah Siddons Award for
Distinguished Achievement.
These hallowed walls,
indeed many of these faces,
have looked upon Modjeska,
Ada Rehan and Minnie Fiske.
Mansfield's voice filled this room.
It is unlikely that the windows
have been opened since his death.
The minor awards, as you can see,
have already been presented.
Minor awards are for such
as the writer and director,
since they merely 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.
To those who do not read,
attend the theatre,
listen to unsponsored radio programs
or know anything of the world
in which you live,
it is perhaps necessary
to introduce myself.
My name is Addison DeWitt.
My native habitat is the theatre.
In it, I toil not. Neither do I spin.
I am a critic and commentator.
I am essential to the theatre.
This is Karen Richards.
She is the wife of a playwright,
therefore of the theatre by marriage.
Nothing in her background should have
brought her closer to the stage
than Row E.
However,
during her senior year at Radcliffe,
Lloyd Richards lectured on the drama.
The following year
Karen became Mrs. Lloyd Richards.
There are, in general,
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.
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 for Eve Harrington
the Sarah Siddons Award.
Margo Channing is a star of the theatre.
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 is a great star. A true star.
She never was or will be
anything less or anything else.
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.
I have been proud and privileged
to have spent my life in the theatre,
a poor player that struts
and frets his hour upon the stage,
and I've been honored to be, for 40 years,
chief prompter
of the Sarah Siddons Society.
39 times have I placed in deserving hands
this highest honor the theatre knows.
Surely no actor is older than I.
I've earned my place out of the sun.
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.
Such young hands. Such a young lady.
Young in years, but whose heart
is as old as the theatre.
Some of us are privileged to know her.
We have seen
beyond the beauty and artistry
that have made her name
resound through the nation.
We know her humility, her devotion,
her loyalty to her art,
her love, her deep and abiding love for us,
for what we are
and what we do, the theatre.
She has had one wish,
one prayer, one dream,
to belong to us.
Tonight her dream has come true,
and henceforth
we shall dream the same of her.
Ladies and gentlemen, for distinguished
achievement in the theatre,
the Sarah Siddons Award
to Miss Eve Harrington.
Bravo!
Eve.
Eve, the golden girl. The cover girl.
The girl next door, the girl on the moon.
Time has been good to Eve.
Life goes where she goes. She's been
profiled, covered, revealed, reported,
what she eats and what
she wears and whom she knows
and where she was and
when and where she's going.
Eve.
You all know all about Eve.
What can there be to know
that you don't know?
When was it? How long?
It seems a lifetime ago.
Lloyd always said that in the theatre
a lifetime was a season
and a season a lifetime.
It's June now. That was early October.
Only last October.
It was a drizzly night.
I remember I asked the taxi to wait.
Where was she?
Strange. I'd become so accustomed
to seeing her there night after night,
I found myself looking for a girl
I'd never spoken to.
Wondering where she was.
Mrs. Richards?
There you are.
It seemed odd, suddenly,
your not being here.
-Why should you think I wouldn't be?
-Why should you be?
Six nights a week for weeks
of watching even Margo Channing
enter and leave a theatre.
-You don't mind my speaking to you?
-Not at all.
I've seen you so often.
It took every bit of courage I could raise.
To speak to just a playwright's wife?
I'm the lowest form of celebrity.
You're Margo Channing's best friend.
You and your husband are always with her.
And Mr. Sampson. What's he like?
Bill Sampson? He's a director.
-He's the best.
-He'll agree with you.
Tell me. What do you do in between
the time Margo goes in and comes out?
Just huddle in that doorway and wait?
Oh, no. I see the play.
You see the play? You've seen
every performance of this play?
Yes.
But don't you find it...
Apart from everything else,
don't you find it expensive?
Standing room doesn't cost much.
I manage.
-I'm gonna take you to Margo.
-Oh, no!
-Oh, yes. She's got to meet you.
-No, I'd be imposing on her.
I'd be just another tongue-tied fan.
There isn't another like you.
There couldn't be.
If I'd known... Some other time.
Looking like this.
You look just fine.
By the way, what's your name?
Eve. Eve Harrington.
-Good evening, Gus.
-Good evening, Mrs. Richards.
-Good night.
-Good night, Gus.
You can breathe it, can't you?
Like some magic perfume.
Wait right here. Don't run away.
"If the South had won,
you could write plays about the North."
-Hi.
-Hello!
"I don't think
you can rightly say we lost the war."
"We was more starved out,
you might say."
"I don't understand all these plays
about love-starved Southern women."
"Love is one thing we were
never starved for in the South."
Margo's interview with
a reporter from the South.
When it gets printed, they're
gonna fire on Gettysburg again.
-It was Fort Sumter they fired on.
-I never played Fort Sumter.
Honeychild had a point.
Lloyd, honey, be a playwright with guts.
Write me one about a nice, normal woman
who just shoots her husband.
-You need new girdles.
-Buy some.
-Same size?
-Of course.
I find these wisecracks
increasingly less funny.
-Aged in Wood happens to be a fine play.
-That's my loyal little woman.
The critics thought so.
The audiences think so.
Packed houses, tickets
four months in advance.
I can't see that Lloyd's plays
have hurt you any.
-Easy now.
-Relax, kid, it's just me and my big mouth.
You get me so mad sometimes.
Of all the women
with nothing to complain about...
-Ain't it the truth?
-Yes, it is.
You're talented, famous, wealthy.
People waiting around night after night
just to see you. Even in the rain.
Autograph fiends. They're not people.
Little beasts that run around in packs
like coyotes.
-They're your fans.
-They're nobody's fans.
They're juvenile delinquents.
They're nobody's audience.
They never see a play or a movie.
They're never indoors long enough.
Well, there's one indoors right now.
-I've brought her back to see you.
-You've what?
She's just outside the door.
The heave-ho.
But you can't put her out. I promised.
Margo, you've got to see her.
She worships you.
It's like something out of a book.
That book is out of print.
Those days are gone.
But if you'd only see her.
You're her whole life.
You must have spotted her by now.
She's always there.
Oh, the mousy one with
the trench coat and the funny hat.
How could I miss her?
Every night, every matinee.
Come in, Eve.
-I thought you'd forgotten about me.
-Not at all.
Margo, this is Eve Harrington.
-How do you do, my dear?
-Oh, brother.
-Hello, Miss Channing.
-My husband.
-Hello, Miss Harrington.
-How do you do?
And this is my dear friend
and companion, Miss Birdie Coonan.
-Oh, brother.
-Miss Coonan.
-Oh, brother, what?
-When she gets like this,
she starts playing Hamlet's mother.
I'm sure you must have things
to do in the bathroom, Birdie, dear.
If I haven't, I'll find
something till you get normal.
Won't you sit down, Miss Worthington?
Harrington.
-I'm so sorry. Won't you sit down?
-Thank you.
Would you like a drink?
I was saying how often
you've seen the play.
No, thank you.
Yes, I've seen every performance.
Every performance?
Then am I safe in assuming you like it?
-I'd like anything Miss Channing played in.
-Would you really? How sweet.
I doubt very much that
you'd like her in The Hairy Ape.
Please don't misunderstand me,
Mr. Richards.
I think part of Miss Channing's greatness
lies in her ability to pick the best plays.
Your new play
is for Miss Channing, isn't it?
Of course it is.
-How did you hear about it?
-There was an item in The Times.
I like the title, Footsteps on the Ceiling.
Yes, but let's get back to this one.
-Have you really seen every performance?
-Yes.
Why? I'm curious.
Well, if I didn't come to see the play,
I wouldn't have anywhere else to go.
There are other plays.
Not with you in them. Not by Mr. Richards.
But you must have friends,
a home, family?
Tell us about it, Eve.
-If I only knew how.
-Try.
Well...
Well, it started
with the play before this one.
-Remembrance.
-Remembrance.
-Did you see it here in New York?
-San Francisco.
It was the last week. I went one night.
The most important night
of my life, until now.
I found myself going the next night
and the next and the next.
Every performance.
Then, when the show went East,
I went East.
-Eve, why don't you start at the beginning?
-Oh, it couldn't possibly interest you.
Please.
I guess it started back home.
Wisconsin, that is.
It was just Mom and Dad and me.
I was an only child.
I used to make believe a lot
when I was a kid.
Acted out all sorts of things.
What they were isn't important.
But, somehow, acting and make-believe
began to fill up my life more and more.
It got so I couldn't tell
the real from the unreal.
Except that the unreal
seemed more real to me...
-I'm talking a lot of gibberish, aren't I?
-Not at all.
Farmers were poor in those days.
That's what Dad was, a farmer.
I had to help out.
So I quit school, went to Milwaukee,
became a secretary in a brewery.
When you're a secretary in a brewery, it's
hard to make believe you're anything else.
Everything is beer.
It wasn't much fun, but it helped at home.
And there was a little theatre group there,
like a drop of rain on the desert.
That's where I met Eddie.
He was a radio technician.
We played Liliom for three performances.
I was awful.
Then the war came and we got married.
Eddie was in the air force.
They sent him to the South Pacific.
You were with the OWI,
weren't you, Mr. Richards?
That's what Who's Who says.
Well, with Eddie gone,
my life went back to beer.
Except for a letter a week.
One week he wrote me
he had leave coming up.
I'd saved my money and vacation time
and went to San Francisco to meet him.
But Eddie wasn't there.
They forwarded the telegram
from Milwaukee.
The one that came from Washington.
To say that Eddie wasn't coming at all.
That Eddie was dead.
I figured I'd stay in San Francisco.
I was alone.
I couldn't go back without Eddie.
I found a job, and his insurance helped.
And there were theatres in San Francisco.
And then, one night, Margo Channing
came to play in Remembrance,
and I went to see it.
Well...
Here I am.
What a story. Everything but
the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end.
There are some human experiences that
do not take place in a vaudeville house!
And that even a fifth-rate vaudevillian
should understand and respect.
-I want to apologize for Birdie.
-You don't have to apologize for me.
I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
It's just my way of talking.
You didn't hurt my feelings, Miss Coonan.
Call me Birdie.
And as for being fifth-rate,
I closed the first half
for eleven years, and you know it.
47 minutes from now my plane takes off
and how do I find you?
-Not ready, looking like a junkyard.
-Thank you so much.
Is it sabotage?
Have you no human consideration?
-Show me a human and I might have.
-Airlines have clocks, even if you don't.
I start shooting a week from Monday.
Zanuck is impatient.
Zanuck, Zanuck!
What are you two? Lovers?
-Only in some ways. You're prettier.
-I'm a junkyard.
-Bill. This is Eve Harrington.
-Hi.
My wonderful junkyard. The mystery
and dreams you find in a junkyard.
Heaven help me.
I love a psychotic.
-Hello. What's your name?
-Eve Harrington.
-You've already met.
-Huh? Where?
-Right here, just a minute ago.
-That's nice.
-You're not going, are you?
-I think I'd better.
It's been... I can hardly find
the words to say how it's been.
No, don't go.
The four of you must have so much to say
to each other with Mr. Sampson leaving.
No, stick around, please.
Tell you what. We'll put Stanislavsky
on his plane, then go somewhere and talk.
Well, if I'm not in the way...
I won't be a minute.
Lloyd, we've got to go.
Good night, Margo.
-I'll call you tomorrow.
-Not too early.
-Good luck, genius.
-Geniuses don't need good luck. I do.
-I'm not worried about you.
-Keep the thought.
Good night, Eve.
I hope I see you again soon.
-I'll be at the old stand tomorrow matinee.
-Not just that way. As a friend.
I'd like that.
-It's been a real pleasure, Eve.
-I hope so, Mr. Richards. Good night.
Good night.
Mrs. Richards?
I'll never forget this night as long as I live.
And I'll never forget you
for making it possible.
And I'll never forget you, Eve.
Where were we going that night,
Lloyd and I?
Funny, the things you remember
and the things you don't.
-So you're going to Hollywood?
-Mm-hm.
-Why?
-I just wondered.
-Just wondered what?
-Why?
-Why what?
-Why you have to go out there.
-I don't have to. I want to.
-Is it the money?
80% of it'll go for taxes.
Then why? Why, if you're the most
successful young director in the theatre...
The theatre. The theatre.
What rules say the theatre exists
only within some ugly buildings
crowded into one
square mile of New York City?
Or London, Paris or Vienna?
Listen, Junior, and learn.
Do you wanna know what the theatre is?
A flea circus. Also opera.
Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets,
Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy,
a one-man band, all theatre.
Wherever there's magic and make-believe
and an audience, there's theatre.
Donald Duck, Ibsen and The Lone Ranger.
Sarah Bernhardt and Poodles Hanneford.
Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable.
Rex the Wild Horse, Eleonora Duse,
all theatre.
You don't understand them all.
You don't like them all.
Why should you?
The theatre's for everybody, you included,
but not exclusively.
So, don't approve or disapprove.
It may not be your theatre,
but it's theatre for somebody, somewhere.
I just asked a simple question.
And I shot my mouth off.
Nothing personal, Junior. No offense.
It's just that there's so much bushwa in
this ivory greenroom they call the theatre,
sometimes it gets up around my chin.
But Hollywood.
You mustn't stay out there.
-It's only a one-picture deal.
-So few come back.
I read George Jean Nathan every week.
-Also Addison DeWitt.
-Every day.
You didn't have to tell me.
It's the latest thing, one earring.
If it isn't, it's going to be.
I can't find the other one.
Throw that dreary letter away.
It bores me.
-Where do you suppose it could be?
-It'll show up.
Oh, I give up. Look in the wigs.
Maybe it got caught in one.
Real diamonds in a wig.
The world we live in.
-Where's my coat?
-Right where you left it.
The seams.
He can't take his eyes off my legs.
Like a nylon lemon peel.
Byron couldn't have said it
more graciously.
Here we go.
Got any messages?
What do you want me
to tell Tyrone Power?
Just give him my phone number.
I'll tell him myself.
Kill the people.
-You got your key?
-See you at home.
I have a suggestion.
There's really not very much time left.
I mean, you haven't had a minute
alone yet.
And I could take care of everything here
and meet you at the gate with the ticket,
if you'd like.
I think we'd like very much.
-Sure you won't mind?
-Of course not.
-She's quite a girl, this whatshername.
-Eve. I'd forgotten they grew that way.
That lack of pretense, that strange
directness and understanding.
Did she tell you about
the theatre and what it meant?
No, I told her. I sounded off.
All the religions in the world
rolled into one,
and we're gods and goddesses.
Isnt it silly? Suddenly I've developed
a big, protective feeling toward her.
A lamb loose in our big, stone jungle.
-Take care of yourself out there.
-They have the Indians pretty well in hand.
Bill.
-Don't get stuck on some glamour puss.
-I'll try.
You're not much of a bargain. You're
conceited, thoughtless and messy.
-Everybody can't be Gregory Peck.
-You're a setup for some young babe.
How childish are you gonna get
before you stop it?
I don't wanna be childish.
I'd settle for a few years.
And cut that out right now.
Am I going to lose you, Bill? Am I?
As of this moment, you're six years old.
All ready.
Thanks for your help. Good luck.
Goodbye, Mr. Sampson.
-Knit me a muffler?
-Call me when you get in.
Hey, Junior!
Keep your eye on her.
Don't let her get lonely.
She's a loose lamb in a jungle.
Don't worry.
That same night, we sent for Eve's
things, her few pitiful possessions.
She moved into the little guest room
on the top floor.
The next three weeks
were out of a fairy tale,
and I was Cinderella in the last act.
Eve became my sister, lawyer, mother,
friend, psychiatrist and cop.
The honeymoon was on.
One more?
From now on it isn't applause,
just something to do
till the aisles get cleared.
What, again?
I could watch you play that last scene
a thousand times, cry every time.
Performance number 1,000 of this one,
if I play it that long,
will take place
in a well-padded booby hatch.
I must say, you can certainly tell
Mr. Sampson's been gone a month.
You certainly can.
Especially if you're me
between now and tomorrow morning.
You bought the new girdles a size smaller.
I can feel it.
Something maybe grew a size larger.
You can get into one of those girdles
and act for two and a half hours.
I couldn't get into the girdle
in two and a half hours.
You haven't noticed my latest bit
of interior decorating.
But you've done so much.
What's new?
The curtains. I made them myself.
They're lovely. Aren't they lovely, Birdie?
Adorable.
We now got everything a dressing room
needs except a basketball hoop.
Just because
you can't even work a zipper!
It was very thoughtful of you, Eve.
I appreciate it.
I'll just take this to the wardrobe mistress.
Don't bother.
Mrs. Brown will be along soon.
No trouble at all.
May I be so bold as to say something?
-Have you ever heard of the word "union"?
-Behind in your dues? How much?
-I haven't got a union. I'm slave labor.
-Well?
But the wardrobe women have got one
and, next to a tenor,
a wardrobe woman is the
touchiest thing in show business.
Oh, oh.
She's got two things to do:
carry clothes and press 'em wrong.
And don't let anybody try to muscle in.
Eve.
We'd better let Mrs. Brown
pick up the wardrobe.
Hello.
We are ready
with your call to Beverly Hills.
-Call? What call?
-Is this Templeton 89970? Miss Channing?
Yes, it is, but I don't understand.
We are ready with the call you placed
for 12 midnight, California time,
to Mr. Sampson.
-I placed?
-Go ahead, please.
Margo, what a wonderful surprise.
What a thoughtful, ever-lovin' thing to do.
Bill. Have I gone crazy, Bill?
-You're my girl, aren't you?
-That I am.
Then you're crazy.
-When are you coming back?
-I leave in a week.
The picture's wrapped up.
We previewed last night.
Oh, those previews.
Like opening out of town, but terrifying.
There's nothing you can do.
You're trapped. You're in a tin can.
In a tin can, cellophane or wrapped
in a Navajo blanket, I want you home.
-You in a hurry?
-In a big hurry, so be quick about it.
Goodbye, darling. Sleep tight.
Hey, wait a minute.
You haven't even said it yet.
Oh, now, Bill. You know how much I do,
but over a phone...
Now, really. That's kids' stuff.
Kids' stuff or not. It doesn't happen
every day and I wanna hear it.
-And if you won't say it, you can sing it.
-Sing it?
Sure, like the Western Union boys
used to do.
Bill...
It's your birthday.
And who remembered it?
Who was there on the dot at 12 midnight?
Happy birthday, darling.
The reading could've been better,
but you said it.
Now, "Many happy returns of the day."
Many happy returns of the day.
-I get a party, don't I?
-Of course. Birthday and coming home.
-Who will I ask?
-I know all about the party. Eve wrote me.
-She did?
-She hasn't missed a week since I left.
But you know that.
You probably tell her what to write.
I sent her a list of guests,
so check with her.
Yeah, I will.
-How is Eve? OK?
-OK.
-I love you.
-I'll check with Eve.
Hm?
I love you, too. Good night, darling.
See ya.
-Birdie.
-Hm?
You don't like Eve, do you?
You want an argument or an answer?
-An answer.
-No.
-Why not?
-Now you want an argument.
-She works hard.
-Night and day.
-She's loyal and efficient.
-Like an agent with only one client.
She thinks only of me,
doesn't she?
Well, let's say she thinks
only about ya, anyway.
-How do you mean that?
-I'll tell ya how.
Like...
Like she's studying you.
Like you was a play, or a book,
or a set of blueprints.
How you walk, talk, eat, think...
I'm sure that's flattering.
There's nothing wrong with it.
Good morning. Well, what do
you think of my elegant new suit?
It looks much better on you
than it did on me.
I can imagine. All it needed was
a little taking in here and letting out there.
Are you sure you won't want it yourself?
Quite sure.
I find it too seventeenish for me.
Come now,
as though you were an old lady.
I'm on my way. Is there anything else?
-That script to take to the Guild.
-I've got it.
And those checks
for the income-tax man.
Right here.
It seems I can't think of a thing
you haven't thought of.
That's my job. See you at teatime.
Eve?
Did you place a call from me to Bill
for midnight California time?
-Golly, I forgot to tell you!
-Yes, dear, you forgot all about it.
I was sure you'd want to,
being his birthday.
You've been so busy lately. Last night
I meant to tell you before you went out.
I guess I was asleep when you got home.
Yes, I guess you were.
It was very thoughtful of you, Eve.
Mr. Sampson's birthday,
I couldn't forget that.
You'd never forgive me.
As a matter of fact,
I sent him a telegram myself.
Bill's welcome-home birthday
party, a night to go down in history.
Even before the party started,
I could smell disaster in the air.
I knew it. I sensed it even as I finished
dressing for that blasted party.
-You all put together?
-My back's open.
-Extra help get here?
-There's some characters
dressed as maids and butlers.
Did you call the William Morris Agency?
You're not funny. Actors would cost less.
How about the food?
The caterer had to go back
for the hors d'oeuvres.
Voil!
That French ventriloquist taught you a lot.
There was nothing he didn't know.
There's a message from the bartender.
"Does Miss Channing know that
she ordered domestic gin by mistake?"
The only thing I ordered
by mistake is the guests.
They don't care what they drink
as long as it burns.
-Where's Bill? He's late.
-Late for what?
Don't be dense. The party.
I ain't dense.
He's been here for 20 minutes.
Well, I certainly think it's odd
he hasn't even come up to...
The cameraman said,
"Even DeMille couldn't see anything
looking through the wrong end!" So...
Don't let me kill the point.
Or isn't it a story for grown-ups?
You've heard it. I looked through
the wrong end of the camera.
Remind me to tell you about the time
I looked into the heart of an artichoke.
-I'd like to hear it.
-Some snowy night in front of the fire.
Meanwhile, would you check
about the hors d'oeuvres, Eve?
The caterer forgot them.
The varnish wasn't dry or something.
Of course.
Looks like I'm going to have a fancy party.
-I thought you were going to be late.
-Well, I'm guest of honor.
I had no idea you were even here.
I ran into Eve
and she told me you were dressing.
That's never stopped you before.
She wanted to know about Hollywood.
She seemed so interested...
-She's a girl of so many interests.
-It's a pretty rare quality these days.
-A girl of so many rare qualities.
-So she seems.
So you've pointed out so often.
So many qualities so often.
Her loyalty, efficiency, devotion, warmth
and affection, and so young.
So young and so fair.
I can't believe you're making this up.
It sounds like something
out of an old Clyde Fitch play.
Clyde Fitch, though you may not think so,
was well before my time.
I always deny that
you were in Our American Cousin
the night Lincoln was shot.
-I don't think that's funny.
-Of course it is.
This is all too laughable
to be anything else.
You know what I feel
about your age obsession.
And this getting into a jealous froth
because I spent ten minutes
with a stage-struck kid.
-20!
-30 minutes, 40 minutes. What of it?
Stage-struck.
She's a young lady of qualities.
And I'm fed up with both
the young lady and her qualities.
Studying me as if I were a play
or a blueprint.
How I walk, talk, think, act, sleep.
How can you take offense at a kid
trying to be like her ideal?
Stop calling her a kid.
As it happens, there are
particular aspects of my life
to which I would like to maintain
sole and exclusive rights and privileges.
-For instance, what?
-For instance, you.
This is my cue to take you
in my arms and reassure you.
But I'm not going to. I'm too mad.
-Guilty!
-Mad!
There are certain characteristics
for which you are famous,
on stage and off.
I love you for some and in spite of others.
I haven't let those become too important.
They're part of your equipment for getting
along in what is called "our environment".
You have to keep your teeth sharp,
all right.
But I will not have you
sharpen them on me, or on Eve.
-What about her teeth? Her fangs?
-She hasn't cut them yet and you know it!
So when you start judging
an idealistic, dreamy-eyed kid
by the bar-room, Benzedrine standards
of this megalomaniac society,
I won't have it!
Eve Harrington has never by word,
look, thought or suggestion
indicated anything to me but adoration
for you and happiness at our being in love.
To intimate anything else
spells a paranoiac insecurity
that you should be ashamed of.
Cut. Print it.
What happens in the next reel?
Do I get dragged off to the snake pits?
Miss Channing?
The hors d'oeuvres are here.
Is there anything else I can do?
Thank you, Eve. I'd like a martini, very dry.
I'll get it.
-What'll you have?
-A milk shake?
A martini, very dry, please.
-The party's on the first floor.
-Hi, Bill.
-Hello, Mrs. Richards.
-How are you, dear?
Good evening, Mr. Richards. Mr. Fabian.
-May I have your coat?
-I'll take it up.
-Please.
-Thank you.
-Hi.
-Hi, Margo.
-The house looks lovely.
-I like that girl.
That quality of quiet graciousness.
Among so many quiet qualities.
Shall we?
-It's made me so happy your taking Eve in.
-I'm so happy you're happy.
You haven't been running
a settlement house exactly.
The kid has earned her way.
You had a mixed-up inventory
when she took over.
Merchandise laying all over the shop.
-You mixed Margo up with a five-and-ten.
-Make it Bergdorf Goodman.
Everything on its proper shelf, eh, Max?
All done up in little ribbons.
I could die right now
and nobody'd be confused.
-How about you, Max?
-How about me what?
Suppose you dropped dead.
What about your inventory?
I ain't going to drop dead.
Not with the heat.
This is the most ghoulish conversation.
-Thank you.
-Nothing.
Max! Mon vieux!
Fife!
"The kid" will be down in a minute, unless
you'd like to take her drink up to her.
I can get a fresh one...
Karen, you're a Gibson girl.
The general atmosphere
is very Macbethish.
-What has or is about to happen?
-What is he talking about?
-Macbeth.
-We've seen you like this before.
Is it over or is it just beginning?
Fasten your seat belts.
It's going to be a bumpy night.
-Margo, darling!
-How are you?
Mademoiselle, je vous remercie
pour l'invitation.
Enchante to you too.
I remember, Addison, crossing you off
my guest list. What are you doing here?
Dear Margo, you were an unforgettable
Peter Pan. You must play it again soon.
-Remember Miss Casswell?
-I do not. How do you do?
-We've never met. Maybe that's why.
-She is an actress.
A graduate of the Copacabana
School of Dramatic Art.
Ah... Eve.
-Good evening, Mr. DeWitt.
-I had no idea you knew each other.
This must be, at long last,
our formal introduction.
-Until now, we've only met in passing.
-That's how you met me. In passing.
Eve, this is an old friend
of Mr. DeWitt's mother.
-Miss Casswell, Miss Harrington.
-How do you do?
I've been wanting you
to meet Eve for the longest time.
Your timidity must have
kept you from mentioning it.
-You know of her interest in the theatre?
-We have that in common.
Then you two must have a long talk.
I'm afraid Mr. DeWitt would find me
boring before too long.
You won't bore him, honey.
You won't even get a chance to talk.
Claudia, come here.
You see that man?
That's Max Fabian, the producer.
Now, go and do yourself some good.
Why do they always look
like unhappy rabbits?
Cos that's what they are.
Now go and make him happier.
Now, don't worry about your little charge.
She'll be in safe hands.
Amen!
-Liebestraum.
-I just played it.
-Play it again.
-But that was the fourth straight time.
Then this will be five.
Many of your guests are wondering when
they may be permitted to view the body.
-Where has it been laid out?
-It hasn't been laid out.
We haven't finished with the embalming.
As a matter of fact, you're looking at it.
The remains of Margo Channing
sitting up.
It is my last wish to be buried sitting up.
Wouldn't you feel more natural
taking a bow?
You know nothing about feelings,
natural or unnatural.
Your guests were also wondering
whether the music couldn't be
a shade more on the,
shall we say, happier side?
If my guests do not like it here,
I suggest they accompany you
to the nursery
where I'm sure
you will all feel more at home.
Margo, you by any chance haven't got
any bicarbonate of soda in the house?
Poor Max. Heartburn?
It's that Miss Casswell.
I don't see why she hasn't
given Addison heartburn.
No heart to burn.
Everybody has a heart,
except some people.
Of course I've got bicarb.
I've got a box in the pantry.
We'll put your name on it. "Max Fabian."
It will stay there always, just for you.
Let the rest of the world
beat their brains out for a buck.
It's friends that count.
-And I have friends.
-I love you, Max. I really mean it.
I love you.
Come to the pantry.
She loves me like a father.
Also, she's loaded.
There you are, Maxie dear.
One good burp
and you'll be rid of that Miss Casswell.
The situation I'm in ain't the kind
you can belch your way out of.
-I made a promise.
-To Miss Casswell? What?
For an audition
for this part we are replacing.
What's her name? Your sister?
-One?
-No, two, please.
If she can act, she might not be bad.
She looks like she might
burn down a plantation.
Right now, I feel like
there is one burning in me.
-When's the audition?
-A couple of weeks.
Tell you what. Why don't I read with her?
-Would you?
-Anything to help you out, Max.
Now that's cooperation. I appreciate it.
Not at all. And now you
can do me a great favor.
Just name it.
Give Eve Harrington a job in your office.
You get quick action, don't you?
I wouldn't think of taking
that girl away from you.
You said yourself
my inventory was in shape,
all my merchandise put away.
To keep her here with nothing to do,
I'd be standing in her way.
-And you need her, Max.
-What will she do?
She'd be a great help. She'd read scripts,
interview people you have to see,
get rid of those you don't have to.
You'd be a man of leisure, Maxie.
-Well...
-Think of your health.
More time to relax
in the fresh air at a racetrack.
-I don't think it's such a good idea.
-Promise?
-Promise.
-That's my Max.
Oh, there you both are.
Max, Karen's decided it's time to go.
-Where is she now?
-Up in your room.
If you'll excuse me,
I'll go and tell Miss Casswell.
-Who's left out there?
-Too many.
And, besides, you got a new guest.
A movie star from Hollywood.
Shucks! And I sent
my autograph book to the cleaners.
You disapprove of me
when I'm like this, don't you?
Not exactly. Sometimes, though,
I wish I understood you better.
-When you do, let me in on it.
-I will.
-How's the new one coming?
-The play? Oh, all right, I guess.
Cora. Still a girl of 20?
20-ish. It's not important.
Don't you think it's about time
it became important?
-How do you mean?
-Don't be evasive.
Margo, you haven't got any age.
Miss Channing is ageless.
Spoken like a press agent.
I know what I'm talking about.
They're my plays.
Spoken like an author.
Lloyd, I'm not 20-ish. I'm not 30-ish.
Three months ago I was 40 years old.
40! Four-0.
That slipped out.
I hadn't quite made up my mind
to admit it.
Now I suddenly feel as if
I've taken all my clothes off.
To thousands of people
you're as young as you want.
As young as they want, you mean.
I'm not interested whether thousands
of people think I'm six or 600.
Just one person, isn't that so?
You know what this is all about.
It has little to do with
whether you should play Cora.
It has everything to do with
you having a fight with Bill.
Bill's 32. He looks 32.
He looked it five years ago.
He'll look it 20 years from now.
I hate men.
Don't worry, Lloyd. I'll play your play.
I'll wear rompers and come in
rolling a hoop, if you like.
Who'd show up at this hour?
It's time people went home.
Hold that coat up.
-Whose is it?
-Some Hollywood movie star.
-Her plane got in late.
-Discouraging, isn't it?
Women with furs like that
where it never even gets cold.
Hollywood.
Tell me, Eve. How are things
going with you? Happy?
There should be a new word for happiness.
Being here with Miss Channing
has been a... I just can't say.
She's been so wonderful,
done so much for me.
Lloyd says Margo compensates for
underplaying on stage
by overplaying reality.
Next to that sable, my new mink
seems like an old bed jacket.
You've done your share, Eve. You've
worked wonders with Margo. Good night.
-Mrs. Richards?
-Karen.
Karen.
Isnt it awful? I'm about
to ask you for another favor,
after all you've done already.
Nobody's done so much.
Stop thinking of yourself
as one of the hundred neediest cases.
-What is it?
-Miss Channing's affairs are in good shape,
so there isn't enough
to keep me as busy as I should be.
Not that I'd consider anything
that would take me away from her.
But the other day
when Mr. Fabian told Miss Channing
that her understudy was going to have
a baby and they'd have to replace her...
-You wanna be Margo's new understudy?
-I don't let myself think about it even.
But I do know the part so well,
and every bit of the staging,
there'd be no need to break in a new girl.
Suppose I had to go on one night
to an audience that came
to see Margo Channing.
-Oh, no, I couldn't possibly!
-I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Margo just doesn't miss performances.
If she can walk, crawl or roll, she plays.
-The show must go on.
-No, dear. Margo must go on.
I don't see any reason
why you shouldn't be her understudy.
-You think Miss Channing would approve?
-I think she'd cheer.
-But Mr. Richards and Mr. Sampson?
-They'll do as they're told.
Then would you speak
to Mr. Fabian about it?
-Of course.
-You won't forget?
I won't forget.
I seem to be forever
thanking you for something, don't I?
The bed looks like a dead animal act.
-Which one is sable?
-But she just got here.
Well, she's on her way
with half the men in the joint.
-It's only a fur coat.
-What do you expect? Live sable?
Diamond collar, gold sleeves.
You know, picture people.
Elder statesmen
of the theatre or cinema
assure the public that actors
and actresses are just plain folks,
ignoring the fact that their greatest
attraction to the public
is their complete lack of resemblance
to normal human beings.
Now there's something
a girl could make sacrifices for.
-And probably has.
-Sable.
-Sable? Did she say sable or Gable?
-Either one.
We all have abnormality in common.
We're a breed apart from the rest
of humanity, we theatre folk.
We are the original
displaced personalities.
You won't have to read his column
tomorrow, Eve. You just heard it.
-I don't agree, Addison.
-That's your particular abnormality.
I admit there's a screwball
element in the theatre.
It sticks out, it's got spotlights
on it and a brass band.
But it isn't basic. It isn't standard.
If it were, the theatre couldn't survive.
Oh, waiter.
That isn't a waiter, my dear.
That's a butler.
Well, I can't yell out "butler", can I?
Maybe somebody's name is Butler.
You have a point.
An idiotic one, but a point.
I don't wanna make trouble.
All I want is a drink.
-Leave it to me. I'll get you one.
-Thank you, Mr. Fabian.
Well done. I can see your career
rising in the east like the sun.
-You were saying?
-The theatre is nine-tenths hard work.
Work done the hard way, by sweat,
application and craftsmanship.
To be a good actor or actress,
or anything in the theatre,
means wanting to be that
more than anything else.
Yes. Yes, it does.
It means a concentration
of desire or ambition and sacrifice
such as no other profession demands.
And the man or woman who accepts
those terms can't be ordinary,
can't be just someone.
To give so much
for almost always so little.
"So little?"
"So little," did you say?
Why, if there's nothing else,
there's applause.
I've listened backstage to people applaud.
It's like...
Like waves of love coming over
the footlights and wrapping you up.
Imagine, to know every night
that different hundreds of people love you.
They smile, their eyes shine,
you've pleased them.
They want you. You belong.
Just that alone is worth anything.
Don't get up. And please stop acting
as if I were the Queen Mother.
-I'm sorry, I didn't...
-Outside of a beehive, Margo,
your behavior
is hardly queenly or motherly.
You're in a beehive, pal.
We're all busy little bees, full of stings,
making honey day and night.
-Aren't we, honey?
-Margo, really.
Please don't play governess, Karen.
I haven't your unyielding good taste.
I wish I could have gone to Radcliffe, too,
but Father wouldn't hear of it.
He needed help behind a notions counter.
I'm being rude now, aren't I?
Or should I say, ain't I?
You're maudlin and full of self-pity.
You're magnificent.
How about calling it a night?
And you pose as a playwright.
A situation pregnant with possibilities,
and all you can think of is "go to sleep."
-It's a good thought.
-It won't play.
As a nonprofessional,
I think it's an excellent idea. Excuse me.
Undramatic, perhaps, but practical.
-Happy little housewife.
-Cut it out.
This is my house, not a theatre.
In my house you're a guest, not a director.
Then stop being a star and treating
your guests as your supporting cast.
-Let's not get into a big hassle.
-It's time we did.
Margo has to realize what's attractive
on stage need not be attractive off.
All right!
I'm going to bed.
You be host. It's your party.
Happy birthday. Welcome home.
And we who are about to die salute you.
Need any help?
To put me to bed?
Take my clothes off, hold my head?
Tuck me in, turn out the lights
and tiptoe out?
Eve would, wouldn't you, Eve?
-If you'd like.
-I wouldn't like.
-Oh, I forgot I had it.
-I didn't.
Too bad. We're gonna miss the third act.
They're gonna play it offstage.
-Coming, Max?
-In a minute.
Eve, you mustn't mind Margo
too much, even if I do.
There must be some reason,
something I've done without knowing.
The reason is Margo and don't try
to figure it out. Einstein couldn't.
But if I thought I'd offended her,
of all people...
Eve... I'm fond of Margo, too.
But I know Margo.
And every now and then,
there is nothing I wanna do so much
as kick her right square in the pants.
Well, if she has to pick on someone,
I'd just as soon it was me.
-Max is gonna drop us.
-Good night.
-Good night.
-Good night.
Mrs. Richards? You won't forget, will you?
What we talked about before?
No, Eve. I won't forget.
Why so remote, Addison?
You should be at the side of
your protge, lending her moral support.
Miss Casswell is where I can
lend no support, moral or otherwise.
In the ladies' shall we say "lounge"?
Being violently ill to her tummy.
It's good luck before an audition.
Miss Casswell got lucky too late.
The audition is over.
It can't be. I came here to read
with Miss Casswell. I promised Max.
The audition was at 2.30.
It's now nearly four.
Is it really? I must start wearing a watch.
I never have, you know.
Who read with Miss Casswell?
-Bill? Lloyd?
-No.
-Well, it can't have been Max. Who?
-Naturally, your understudy.
It's unnatural to allow a girl
in an advanced state of pregnancy...
I refer to your new and unpregnant
understudy, Miss Eve Harrington.
Eve? My understudy?
-Didn't you know?
-Of course I knew.
It just slipped your mind?
How was Miss Casswell?
Frankly, I don't remember.
-Just slipped your mind?
-Completely.
Nor can anyone else present
tell you how Miss Casswell read,
or whether Miss Casswell read
or rode a pogo stick.
Was she that bad?
Margo, I have lived in the theatre
as a Trappist monk lives in his faith.
I have no other world, no other life.
Once in a great while,
I experience that moment of revelation
for which all true believers
wait and pray. You were one.
Jeanne Eagels another, Paula Wessely,
Hayes. There are others, three or four.
Eve Harrington will be among them.
I take it she read well.
It wasn't a reading, it was a performance.
Brilliant, vivid,
something made of music and fire.
How nice.
In time, she'll be what you are.
A mass of music and fire.
That's me.
An old kazoo with some sparklers.
Tell me, was Bill swept away, too?
Or were you
too full of revelation to notice?
Bill didn't say.
But Lloyd listened to his play
as if it had been written by someone else,
he said.
It sounded so fresh,
so new, so full of meaning.
How nice for Lloyd. How nice for Eve.
How nice for everybody.
Eve was incredibly modest.
She insisted that no credit was due her.
That Lloyd felt as he did because she read
his lines exactly as he'd written them.
The implication being
that I did not read them as written?
Neither your name nor your performance
entered the conversation.
Ah! Feeling better, my dear?
Like I just swam the English Channel.
Now what?
Your next move, it seems to me,
should be towards television.
Tell me this.
Do they have auditions for television?
That's all television is, my dear.
Nothing but auditions.
Oh, Margo, darling.
Mm-hm!
Terribly sorry I was late.
Lunch was long and I couldn't find a cab.
-Where's Miss Casswell? Oh, hello, Eve.
-Hello, Miss Channing.
How are you making out
in Mr. Fabian's office?
Now, Max, I don't want you
working this child too hard
just because you promised.
As you see, I kept my promise, too.
It's all over.
-What's all over?
-The audition.
-Eve read with Miss Casswell.
-Eve? How enchanting.
How did you get the idea of letting
Eve read with Miss Casswell?
-Well, she's your understudy.
-Eve? My understudy? I had no idea.
I thought you knew.
She started a week ago.
I've never seen her backstage,
but with so many people loitering about...
Well, well.
So Eve is not working for Max, after all.
Max, you sly puss.
Miss Channing, I can't tell you
how glad I am that you arrived so late.
Really, Eve? Why?
Otherwise,
I never would have dared to read.
-Why not?
-If you'd come in the middle,
I couldn't have gone on.
What a pity.
All that fire and music being turned off.
-What fire and music?
-You wouldn't understand.
How was Miss Casswell?
Back to the Copacabana.
But Eve, Margo. Let me tell you about Eve.
I was dreadful, Miss Channing.
I have no right to be anyone's understudy,
much less yours.
I'm sure you underestimate yourself.
You always do.
You were about to tell me about Eve.
-You'd have been proud of her.
-I'm sure.
-She was a revelation.
-Oh, to you too?
-What do you mean by that?
-It must have been a revelation
to have a 24-year-old character
played by a 24-year-old actress.
-That's beside the point.
-It is the point.
It must have seemed
so new and fresh to you,
so exciting, to have your lines
read just as you wrote them.
-Addison.
-So full of meaning, fire and music.
You've talked to that
venomous fishwife DeWitt.
In this case, as trustworthy
as the world almanac.
You knew when you came in
that Eve was your understudy.
Playing that childish game
of cat and mouse.
Not mouse. Never mouse. If anything, rat.
Your genius for making a bar-room brawl
out of a perfectly innocent
misunderstanding.
Perfectly innocent?
Men have been hanged for less.
I'm lied to, attacked behind my back,
accused of reading your play
as if it were the holy gospel.
I never said it was.
You listen as if someone else had written
your play. Whom do you have in mind?
Arthur Miller? Sherwood?
Beaumont and Fletcher?
-May I say a word?
-No!
You think Miller or Sherwood would stand
for the nonsense I take from you?
Stick to Beaumont and Fletcher.
They've been dead for 300 years!
All playwrights should be dead
for 300 years!
That would solve none of their problems
because actresses never die!
The stars never die and never change.
You may change this star
any time you want
for a new and fresh and exciting one,
fully equipped with fire and music.
Any time you want,
starting with tonight's performance.
This is for lawyers to talk about.
This concerns a contract
that you cannot rewrite or ad-lib.
Are you threatening me
with legal action, Mr. Fabian?
-Are you breaking the contract?
-Answer my question.
-Who am I to threaten? I'm a dying man.
-I don't hear you.
-I said I'm a dying man!
-Not until the last drugstore
has sold its last pill.
I shall never understand the process
by which a body with a voice
suddenly fancies itself as a mind.
Just when does an actress decide
they're her words she's saying
and her thoughts she's expressing?
Usually at the point
when she has to rewrite and rethink them
to keep the audience
from leaving the theatre.
It's about time the piano realized
it has not written the concerto!
And you, I take it, are the Paderewski
who plays his concerto on me, the piano?
Where is Princess Fire and Music?
-Who?
-The kid. Junior.
-Gone.
-I must have frightened her away.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Sometimes you frighten me.
Poor little flower.
Dropped her petals and folded her tent.
-Don't mix your metaphors.
-I'll mix what I like!
I'm nothing but a body with a voice.
No mind.
What a body. What a voice.
That ex ship-news reporter.
No body, no voice, all mind.
The gong rang, the fight's over,
calm down.
I will not calm down.
Don't calm down.
-You're being terribly tolerant, aren't you?
-I'm trying terribly hard.
Well, you needn't be. I will not be
tolerated and I will not be plotted against.
-Here we go.
-Such nonsense. What do you take me for?
Little Nell from the country?
Been my understudy for a week
without me knowing it.
-Carefully hidden, no doubt.
-Don't get carried away.
Arrives here for an audition
when everyone knows I will be here,
-and gives a performance out of nowhere.
-You've been all through that with Lloyd.
The playwright doesn't make the
performance. It doesn't just happen.
Full of fire and music and whatnot.
Carefully rehearsed, I have no doubt.
Full of those Bill Sampson touches.
-I am tired of these paranoiac outbursts.
-Paranoiac?
I didn't know Eve was
your understudy until this afternoon.
Tell that to Dr. Freud
along with the rest of it.
No, I'll tell it to you for the last time.
Cos you've got to stop hurting the two
of us by these paranoiac tantrums.
That word.
I don't even know what it means.
It's time you found out.
-I love you. I love you.
-Hah!
-You're beautiful and intelligent.
-A body with a voice.
A beautiful and an intelligent woman,
and a great actress.
A great actress at the peak of her career.
You have every reason for happiness.
-Except happiness.
-Every reason.
But due to some uncontrollable drive,
you permit the slightest action of a kid...
-A kid!
-...a kid to turn you into a screaming harpy.
Now, once and for all, stop it.
It's obvious you're not a woman.
-I've been aware of that for some time.
-Well, I am.
I'll say.
Don't be condescending.
Come on, get up. I'll buy you a drink.
I may have seen better days,
but I'm still not to be had
for the price of a cocktail.
Like a salted peanut.
-Margo, let's make peace.
-The terms are too high.
Just being happy? Just stopping
all this nonsense about Eve?
-And Eve and me?
-It's not nonsense.
But if I tell you it is, as I just did,
were you listening to me?
-Isnt that enough?
-I wish it were.
Then what would be enough?
If we got married?
I wouldn't want you to marry me
just to prove something.
You've had so many reasons
for not wanting to marry me.
Margo, tell me what's behind all this.
I don't know, Bill.
It's just a feeling. I don't know.
I think you do know.
But you won't or can't tell me.
I said before it was gonna be
my last try, and I meant it.
I can't think of anything else to do.
I wish I could.
We usually wind up screaming
as the curtain comes down.
Then it comes up again
and everything's fine.
But not this time.
No playwright in the world
could make me believe
this would happen
between two adult people.
Goodbye, Margo.
Bill?
Where are you going?
To find Eve?
That suddenly makes
the whole thing believable.
Lloyd.
-Lloyd, what's happened?
-Up to here, that's where I've got it.
Of all the star-ridden,
presumptuous, hysterical...
-Margo again.
-And again and again.
-Two hours late for the audition.
-That's on time for Margo.
And then a childish routine about
not knowing Eve was her understudy.
-It's possible she didn't.
-She knew.
Addison told her how superbly
Eve had read the part.
Karen, let me tell you about Eve.
She's got everything. A born actress.
Sensitive, understanding,
young, exciting...
You'll run out of adjectives, dear.
Everything a playwright first thinks
of wanting to write about,
until his play becomes
a vehicle for Miss Channing.
Margo hasn't done badly by it.
Margo's great.
She knows it, that's the trouble.
She can play Peck's Bad Boy
all she wants and who's to stop her?
Who's to give her that boot
in the rear she needs and deserves?
It's gonna be a cozy weekend.
-What is?
-We're driving to the country tomorrow.
Just the four of us. Bill, Margo, you and I.
Well, we've spent weekends
before with nobody talking.
Just be sure to lock up all blunt
instruments and throwable objects.
Newton, they say,
thought of gravity
by getting hit on the head by an apple.
And the man
who invented the steam-engine,
he was watching a teakettle.
But not me. My big idea came
to me just sitting on a couch.
That boot in the rear to Margo.
Heaven knows, she had one coming.
From me, from Lloyd, from Eve,
Bill, Max and so on.
We'd all felt those size fives
of hers often enough.
But how? The answer was
buzzing around me like a fly.
I had it.
But I let it go.
Screaming and calling names is one thing,
but this could mean...
Why not? "Why," I said to myself, "not?"
It would all seem perfectly legitimate.
And only two people in the world
would know.
Also, the boot would land where it would
do the most good for all concerned.
After all,
it was no more than a harmless joke
which Margo herself
would be the first to enjoy.
And no reason why she shouldn't
be told about it, in time.
Hello. Will you please call
Miss Eve Harrington to the phone?
Not at all. I'll wait.
It was a cold weekend,
outside and in.
Bill didn't come at all.
Margo didn't know where he was
and didn't care, she kept saying.
Somehow we staggered through Sunday,
and by the time we drove Margo
to the station late Monday afternoon,
she and Lloyd had thawed out
to the extent of being civil to each other.
What time is it?
When you asked a minute ago, it was 5.42.
It is now 5.43.
When you ask again a minute from now...
I just don't want Margo to miss her train.
As it is, she'll barely make the theatre.
5.55. We'll be at the station
in plenty of time.
That little place
"just two hours from New York."
It's on my list of things
I'll never understand,
like collecting shrunken Indian heads.
You should know what it means
to want a little peace and quiet.
Peace and quiet is for libraries.
Lloyd. Please.
Just a little skid, that's all.
This road's like glass.
-Karen and I just don't want an accident.
-I don't intend to have an accident.
It isn't important whether you do.
We are wearing long underwear.
Now what's this?
But it can't be. We can't be out of gas.
I filled it myself yesterday. Wasn't it full
when you drove to Brewster this morning?
I didn't look. You know
I don't pay attention to those things.
Just incredible.
-How much time have we got?
-Roughly ten minutes.
-How far is the station?
-About three or four miles.
-Any houses where we can borrow gas?
-There's not much along this back road.
Not many cars either.
Not much chance of a lift.
No sense in sitting here. I'm gonna
walk up about half a mile, just in case.
-You want it on?
-It doesn't matter.
I detest cheap sentiment.
-Karen?
-Mm-hm?
No, thank you.
-I haven't been very pleasant this weekend.
-We've all been a little tense lately.
Come to think of it,
I haven't been very pleasant for weeks.
For that, I'm truly sorry.
More than any two people I know, I don't
want you and Lloyd to be angry with me.
We're never deeply angry.
We just get mad the way you do.
We know you too well.
So many people know me.
I wish I did.
I wish someone would tell me about me.
You're Margo. Just Margo.
And what is that? Besides something
spelled out in light bulbs, I mean.
Besides a temperament, which consists
mostly of swooping about on a broomstick
and screaming at the top of my voice.
Infants behave the way I do, you know.
They carry on and misbehave.
They'd get drunk if they knew how,
when they can't have what they want.
When they feel unwanted or insecure or...
...unloved.
-What about Bill?
-What about Bill?
He's in love with you.
More than anything in this world,
I love Bill. And I want Bill.
And I want him to want me.
But me, not Margo Channing.
And if I can't tell them apart, how can he?
Well, why should he and why should you?
Bill's in love with Margo Channing.
He's fought with her, worked with her,
loved her.
But ten years from now
Margo Channing will have ceased to exist.
And what's left will be... What?
Margo, Bill is all of
eight years younger than you.
Those years stretch as the years go on.
I've seen it happen too often.
Not to you, not to Bill.
Isnt that what they always say?
I don't suppose the heater runs
if the motor doesn't.
Silly, isn't it?
You'd think they'd fix it so people
could just sit in a car and keep warm.
About Eve.
I've acted pretty disgracefully
toward her too.
-Well...
-Don't fumble for excuses.
Not here and now with my hair down.
At best,
let's say I've been oversensitive to...
Well, to the fact that she's so young,
so feminine and so helpless.
To so many things I want to be for Bill.
It's funny, a woman's career.
The things you drop on your way up
so you can move faster.
You forget you'll need them again
when you get back to being a woman.
That's one career all females have
in common, whether we like it or not.
Being a woman.
Sooner or later, we've got to work at it.
No matter how many
other careers we've had or wanted.
And in the last analysis,
nothing's any good unless you can
look up just before dinner or
turn around in bed and there he is.
Without that, you're not a woman.
You're something with a French provincial
office or a... A book full of clippings.
But you're not a woman.
Slow curtain. The end.
Margo. Margo, I want you
to know how sorry I am about this.
-About what?
-This.
I can't tell you how sorry I am.
Don't give it a thought.
One of destiny's merry pranks.
After all, you didn't personally
drain the gasoline tank yourself.
Eve, of course, was superb.
Many of the audience
understandably preferred to return
another time to see Margo.
But those who remained cheered loudly,
lustily and long for Eve.
How thoughtful of her to call
and invite me that afternoon.
And what a happy coincidence
that several representatives
of other newspapers
happened to be present.
All of us invited that afternoon
to attend an understudy's performance,
about which
the management knew nothing
until they were forced
to ring up the curtain at nine o'clock.
Coincidence.
You were better than all right.
You rang a bell. Little things
here and there, but it doesn't matter.
Be proud of yourself.
You've got a right to be.
Are you proud of me, Bill?
I admit I was worried
when Max called. I had my doubts.
-You shouldn't have had any doubts.
-After all, the other day was one scene.
The woods
are full of one-scene sensations.
But you did it. With work and patience,
you'll be a good actress
-if that's what you wanna be.
-Is that what you want me to be?
-I'm talking about you and what you want.
-So am I.
-What have I got to do with it?
-Everything.
The names I've been called,
but never Svengali. Good luck.
Don't run away, Bill.
From what would I be running?
You're always after truth
on the stage. What about off?
-I'm for it.
-Then face it. I have.
Ever since that first night in here.
I told you
what every actress should know.
You told me that whatever I became,
it would be because of you.
-Make-up's a little heavy.
-And for you.
-You're quite a girl.
-You think?
-I'm in love with Margo. Hadn't you heard?
-You hear all kinds of things.
I'm only human, rumors to the contrary,
and I'm as curious as the next man.
-Find out.
-Only thing:
what I go after I want to go after.
I don't want it to come after me.
Don't cry. Just score it
as an incomplete forward pass.
Who is it?
May I come in?
Certainly, Mr. DeWitt.
I expected to find this room
with a theatreful of people at your feet.
-I'm lucky they didn't throw things.
-Your performance was no surprise to me.
After the other day, I regarded it
as simply a promise fulfilled.
You're more than kind. But it's
still Miss Channing's performance.
I'm the carbon copy you read
when you can't find the original.
-You're more than modest.
-It's not modesty. I don't try to kid myself.
A revolutionary approach to the theatre.
-But if I may make a suggestion...
-Please do.
I think the time has come
to shed some of your humility.
It is just as false not to blow your horn
at all as it is to blow it too loudly.
I don't think I've done anything
to sound off about.
We come into this world with our little
egos equipped with individual horns.
If we don't blow them, who else will?
Even so. One pretty good performance by
an understudy, it'll be forgotten tomorrow.
It needn't be.
Even if I wanted to, as you say,
be less humble, blow my own horn,
how would I do it? I'm less than nobody.
-I'm somebody.
-You certainly are.
Leave the door open a bit, so we can talk.
After you change, if you're not busy
elsewhere, we could have supper.
I'd love to. Or should I pretend I'm busy?
Let's have a minimum of pretending.
I shall want to do a column about you.
I'm not even enough for a paragraph.
Perhaps more than one.
There's so much I want to know.
I've heard your story in part.
Your home in Wisconsin,
your tragic marriage,
your fanatical attachment to Margo.
It started in San Francisco, didn't it?
I say your idolatry of Margo
started in San Francisco, didn't it?
That's right.
San Francisco, an oasis of
civilization in the California desert.
Tell me, do you share
my high opinion of San Francisco?
Yes, I do.
And that memorable night when Margo
first dazzled you from the stage,
what theatre was it in San Francisco?
Was it the Shubert?
Yes, the Shubert.
Fine old theatre, the Shubert.
Full of tradition.
Untouched by the earthquake.
Or should I say fire?
Tell me, what was your husband's name?
-Eddie.
-Eddie what?
I'm about to go into the shower.
I won't be able to hear you.
Well, it can wait.
Where would you like to go?
We must make this a special night.
You take charge.
I believe I will.
Some morning papers carried
a squib about Eve's performance.
Not much, but full of praise.
I couldn't imagine
how they found out about it.
But Lloyd said Max's publicity man
probably sent out the story.
At any rate, I felt terribly guilty
and ashamed of myself
and wanted nothing so much
as to forget the whole thing.
Margo and I were having lunch at 21,
just like girlfriends, with hats on.
-Has Miss Channing come in?
-Not yet.
Thank you.
Oh, Eve! I've heard the most wonderful
things about your performance.
Relief that I managed
to stagger through it.
She was magnificent.
-Then you've heard, too.
-I was there.
-You were at the play last night?
-A happy coincidence.
-We're having lunch with a talent scout.
-They certainly don't waste much time.
-It's nothing definite. Just lunch.
-They'll be wasting their time.
Eve has no intention
of going to Hollywood.
By your smart dress,
I take it your companion is a lady?
-Margo.
-Margo lunching in public?
It's a new Margo,
but she's just as late as the old one.
She may be later than you think.
Why not read my column
to pass the time?
-The minutes will fly like hours.
-Thank you, Addison.
Now we must join
our sunburned eager beaver.
-Goodbye, Karen.
-Goodbye.
"And so my hat which has,
lo, these many seasons,
"become firmly rooted about my ears,
is lifted to Miss Harrington.
"I am available for dancing in the streets
and shouting from the housetops."
I thought that one went out
with Woollcott. Now listen to this.
"Miss Harrington had much to tell and
these columns shall report her faithfully
"about the lamentable practice
in our theatre of permitting
"mature actresses
to continue playing roles
"requiring a youth and vigor
of which they retain but a dim memory."
-I just can't believe it.
-It gets better.
"About the understandable reluctance
of our entrenched first ladies of the stage
"to encourage, shall we say,
younger actresses,
"and Miss Harrington's unsupported
struggle for opportunity."
-I can't believe Eve said those things.
-In this rat race,
everybody's guilty till proved innocent.
One of the differences between
the theatre and civilization.
What gets me
is how all the papers happened
to catch that particular performance.
Lloyd says it's a publicity release.
The witch
must have sent out Indian Runners,
snatching critics out of bars, steam rooms
and museums or wherever they hole up.
She won't get away with it.
Nor will Addison DeWitt
and his poison pen.
If Equity or my lawyer can't
or won't do anything about it,
I shall personally stuff that pathetic little
lost lamb down Mr. DeWitt's ugly throat!
I came as soon as I read that piece of filth.
I ran all the way.
Bill's here, baby.
Everything's all right now.
I guess at this point
I'm what the French call "de trop."
Maybe just a little around the edges.
It's Addison from start to finish.
It drips with his brand of venom.
Taking advantage of a kid,
twisting her words,
making her say what he wanted her to say.
-Where did you get all that information?
-Eve.
-Eve?
-She's been to see me.
She left just before you came in.
You just missed her.
-That was a pity.
-Wanted to explain about the interview.
Wanted to apologize to someone,
and didn't dare face Margo.
-I wonder why.
-She started talking and couldn't finish.
She cried so.
I've been going over our financial position,
if you'll pardon the expression.
-That's quite a change of subject.
-What with taxes coming up, and,
since I'm a playwright and not
an oil-well operator, I was thinking...
I'm trying hard to follow you.
Instead of waiting until next season
to do Footsteps on the Ceiling,
which is in pretty good shape,
and if Margo can be talked into
going on tour with Aged in Wood,
we could put Footsteps
into production right away.
-I'm beginning to catch up.
-If we can cast it properly, that is.
Maybe get some younger actress?
Someone who'd look the part
as well as play it?
-You've got to admit, it'd be a novelty.
-Now you're quoting Addison or Eve.
Eve did mention the play, but in passing.
She'd never have the nerve
to ask to play a part like Cora.
Eve would ask Abbott to give her Costello.
I got the idea myself while
she was talking about the play.
-With gestures, of course.
-To write something
and have it realized completely.
For once, not to compromise.
Lloyd Richards, do not consider
giving that contemptible little worm
the part of Cora!
-Now just a minute...
-Margo's not been exactly a compromise.
Playwrights everywhere would
give their shirts for that compromise.
Now just a minute...
Eve's disloyalty and ingratitude
must be contagious.
All this hysteria because
of an impulsive excited kid
and a professional
manure-slinger named DeWitt.
-She apologized, didn't she?
-On her knees, I've no doubt.
Very touching.
Very Academy of Dramatic Arts.
That bitter cynicism is something
you've acquired since you left Radcliffe.
That cynicism I acquired the day I
discovered I was different from little boys.
Hello.
Oh, hi, Margo.
No, not at all.
Karen and I were just chatting.
Hm?
Yes, I'm sure we can
and I'm sure we'd love to.
Right. 11.45ish.
See you then.
Margo and Bill want us to meet them
at the Cub Room tonight after the theatre.
Margo Channing in the Cub Room.
I couldn't be more surprised
if she'd said Grant's tomb.
-I'm glad Bill's back.
-They'd die without each other.
I didn't promise Eve anything.
I said she'd be fine for the part
but there were practical difficulties.
-Such as?
-You, for one.
I told her you wanted Margo to play
the part and I would want your approval.
That's fine. Fine and dandy.
Just refer all of Miss Eve Harrington's
future requests to me.
The so-called art of acting is not one
for which I have a particularly high regard.
-Hear, hear.
-But you may quote me as follows.
"Tonight Miss Margo Channing gave
a performance in your cockamamie play,
"the like of which I have never seen before
and expect rarely to see again."
-He does not exaggerate. I was good.
-You were great.
Quite a night. I hear your understudy,
a Miss Harrington, has given her notice.
-Too bad.
-I'm broken up about it.
You just can't pick up
champagne and drink it.
Somebody's got to be
very witty about a toast.
I shall propose the toast,
without wit, with all my heart.
To Margo.
-To my bride-to-be.
-Glory hallelujah.
-Margo.
-Drink.
-When? When are you going to do it?
-Tomorrow we meet at City Hall at ten.
-And you're going to be on time.
-Yes, sir.
City Hall, that's for prizefighters
and reporters.
I see a cathedral, banks of flowers...
It's only for the license.
There's a three-day wait for blood tests.
I'll marry you if it turns out
you have no blood at all.
-What are you going to wear?
-Something simple,
a fur coat over a nightgown.
The point is this. In a cathedral,
a ballpark or a penny arcade,
we want you two beside us,
as our nearest and dearest friends.
Which we are. Which we'll always be.
There are very few moments in life
as good as this. Let's remember it.
To each of us and all of us,
never have we been more close.
May we never be farther apart.
-Mrs. Richards?
-Yes.
-For you.
-Thank you.
Very indiscreet.
A note in the open like that.
Next time, tell your lover
to blow smoke rings or tap a glass.
Lloyd, I want you to be big about this.
The world is full of love tonight.
No woman is safe.
Well, this beats all world's records
for running, jumping or standing gall.
"Forgive my butting in to what
seems such a happy occasion,
"but it's important that I speak with you.
"'Please"' and that's underlined,
"meet me in the ladies' room. Eve."
I understand she's now
the understudy in there.
Hand me that empty bottle. I may find her.
Well, look. There's Rasputin.
Encore du champagne.
-More champagne, Miss Channing?
-That's what I said, bub.
Maybe she just wants to apologize.
I have no interest in anything she may say.
But what could she say?
That's what fascinates me.
-Go on, find out.
-Karen, in all the years of our friendship,
I have never let you go
to the ladies' room alone.
Now I must. I am busting to find out
what's going on in that feverish
little brain waiting in there.
Well... All right.
Karen!
How nice.
Very effective, but why take it out on me?
I was wondering
whether you'd come at all.
Don't get up. And don't act
as if I were the Queen Mother.
I don't expect you to be pleasant.
I don't intend to be.
Can't we sit down just for a minute?
I've got a lot to say and none of its easy.
-There can't be very much.
-But there is.
-Easy or not, I won't believe a word of it.
-Why should you?
Please sit down.
You know, I've always considered
myself a very clever girl.
Smart, good head on my shoulders,
that sort of thing.
Never the wrong word at the wrong time.
But then I'd never met Addison DeWitt.
I remember I had a tooth pulled once.
They gave me some anaesthetic.
I don't remember the name.
It affected me strangely.
I found myself saying things
I wasn't even thinking.
As if my mind was outside of my body
and couldn't control what I did or said.
-And you felt like that talking to Addison?
-In a way.
You find yourself
trying to say what you mean,
but somehow the words change.
They become his words.
And suddenly you're not saying
what you mean, but what he means.
Do you expect me to believe
that you didn't say any of that?
That they were all Addison?
I don't expect you to believe anything,
except that the responsibility
is mine, and the disgrace.
Let's not get overdramatic.
You really have a low opinion
of me, haven't you?
I'll give you some pleasant news.
I've been told off
in no uncertain terms, all over town.
Miss Channing should be happy
to hear that.
To know how loyal her friends are,
how much more loyal than
she had a right to expect me to be.
-Eve, don't cry.
-I'm not crying.
Tell me, how did your luncheon
turn out with the man from Hollywood?
Some vague promises of a test.
If a particular part should come along,
one of those things.
-But the raves about your performance...
-An understudy's performance.
Well, I think you're painting
the picture a little blacker than it is, really.
Don't underestimate him.
You have a powerful friend in Addison.
He's not my friend. You were my friends.
-He can help you.
-I wish I'd never met him.
I'd like him to be dead.
I want my friends back.
Eve. I don't think
you meant to cause unhappiness.
But you did. More to yourself perhaps,
as it turned out, than to anyone else.
-I'll never get over it.
-Oh, yes, you will.
You theatre people always do.
Nothing is forever in the theatre.
Whatever it is, it's here, it flares up,
burns hot,
and it's gone.
-I wish I could believe that.
-Give yourself time.
Don't worry too much
about what people think.
You're very young and very talented.
And, believe it or not,
if there's anything I can do...
There is something.
-I think I know.
-Something most important you can do.
You wanna play Cora. You want me
to tell Lloyd I think you should play it.
If you told him so, he'd give me
the part. He said he would.
After all you've said. Don't you know
that part was written for Margo?
It might've been 15 years ago.
It's my part now.
-You talk just as Addison said you did.
-Cora is my part. You've got to tell Lloyd.
Nothing in the world
will make me say that.
Addison wants me to play it.
-Over my dead body.
-That won't be necessary.
Addison knows how Margo
happened to miss that performance,
how I happened to know she'd miss it
in time to notify every paper in town.
It's quite a story.
Addison could make quite a thing of it.
Imagine how snide
and vicious he could get,
and still tell nothing but the truth.
I had a time persuading him.
You better sit down.
You look a bit wobbly.
If I play Cora, Addison will never
tell what happened, in or out of print.
A simple exchange of favors.
I'm so happy I can do something
for you at long last.
Your friendship with Margo,
your deep, close friendship.
What would happen to it
if she knew the cheap trick
you played on her for my benefit?
You and Lloyd, how long,
even in the theatre,
before people forgot what happened
and trusted you again?
No.
It would be so much easier for everyone
concerned if I were to play Cora.
So much better theatre, too.
A part in a play.
You'd do all that just for a part in a play?
I'd do much more for a part that good.
Hungry?
I'm not surprised, after all that humble pie.
Nothing of the kind.
Karen and I had a nice talk.
Heart to heart? Woman to woman?
Including a casual reference to the part
of Cora and your hopes of playing it?
I discussed it very openly.
I told her I'd spoken to Lloyd,
and that he was interested.
And Karen mentioned, of course,
that Margo expects to play the part?
Oddly enough, she didn't
say a word about Margo.
Just that she'll be happy to do
what she can to see that I play it.
Just like that, eh?
Just like that.
You know, Eve, sometimes
I think you keep things from me.
-I don't think that's funny.
-It wasn't meant to be.
I confide in you and rely on you
more than anyone I've ever known.
To say a thing like that now,
without any reason,
when I need you more than ever.
I hope you mean what you say.
I intend to hold you to it.
We have a great deal
in common, it seems to me.
-Well, what happened?
-Nothing much. She apologized.
-With tears?
-With tears.
But not right away. First fight them back,
chin up, stout fellow.
-Check.
-Very classy. Lots of technique.
You mean all this time she's done
nothing but apologize? What did you say?
Not much.
Groom, may I have a wedding present?
-What would you like? Texas?
-I want everybody to shut up about Eve.
Just shut up about Eve. That's all I want.
Give Karen more wine.
Never have I been so happy.
Isn't it a lovely room? The Cub Room.
What a lovely, clever name.
Where the elite meet.
Never have I seen so much elite,
all with their eyes on me,
waiting for me to crack that little
gnome on the noggin with a bottle.
But not tonight. I'm forgiving tonight.
Even Eve. I forgive Eve.
There they go.
There goes Eve.
Eve Evil, little Miss Evil.
But "the evil that men do..."
How does that go, groom?
Something about the good
they leave behind.
I played it once in rep in Wilkes-Barre.
You've got it backwards,
even for Wilkes-Barre.
Do you know why I forgive Eve?
She left good behind.
The four of us here together,
it's Eve fault. I forgive her.
And Bill, especially Bill. She did that too.
You know, she probably
means well after all.
-She is a louse.
-Never try to outguess Margo.
-Groom?
-Yes, dear.
-Do you know what I'm going to be?
-A cowboy?
-A married lady.
-With a paper to prove it.
I'm going to look up at six o'clock,
and there he'll be.
-Remember, Karen?
-I remember.
-You'll be there, won't you?
-Often enough to keep the franchise.
No more make-believe, offstage or on.
Remember, Lloyd? I mean it now.
Lloyd, will you promise
not to be angry with me?
-That depends.
-No, I mean deeply angry.
I don't think I could be.
Well, I don't want to play Cora.
-What?
-You're always so touchy about his plays.
It isn't the part. It's a great part
and a fine play. But not for me anymore.
Not for a foursquare, upright,
downright, forthright, married lady.
What's your being married
got to do with it?
It means I've finally got a life to live.
I don't have to play parts I'm too old for
just because I've got
nothing to do with my nights.
Oh, Lloyd, I'll make it up to you, believe me.
I'll tour a year with this one, anything.
Only you do understand, don't you?
-What's so funny?
-Nothing.
-Nothing?
-Everything. Everything's so funny.
Lloyd never got around to asking
whether it was all right with me
for Eve to play Cora.
Bill, oddly enough, refused to direct
the play at first, with Eve in it.
Lloyd and Max finally won him over.
Margo never came to rehearsal.
"Too much to do around the house,"
she said.
I'd never known Bill and Lloyd
to fight as bitterly and often,
and always over some business for Eve,
or a move, or the way she read a speech.
But I'd never known Lloyd
to meddle as much with Bill's directing,
as far as it affected Eve, that is.
Somehow Eve kept them going.
Bill stuck it out. Lloyd seemed happy.
And I thought it might be best
if I skipped rehearsals from then on.
It seemed to me I had known always
that it would happen. And here it was.
I felt helpless. That helplessness you
feel when you have no talent to offer,
outside of loving your husband.
How could I compete?
Everything Lloyd loved about me,
he'd gotten used to long ago.
Hello?
Who? Who's calling Mr. Richards?
My name wouldn't mean anything.
I room across the hall from Eve Harrington.
She isn't well. She's been crying
all night and she's hysterical.
She doesn't want a doctor and...
Who is it? What's it all about?
-Did Miss Harrington tell you to call?
-Oh, no. Eve didn't say to call him.
I saw Mr. Richards with her
a couple of times.
I thought, they being such good friends...
This is Lloyd Richards.
Where is Eve? Let me talk to her.
Hello, Mr. Richards.
She's upstairs in her room.
I really hate to bother you this way,
but the way Eve's been feeling,
I've been worried sick, what with
her leaving tomorrow for New Haven.
Tell her not to worry.
Tell her I'll be right over.
To the theatre world,
New Haven, Connecticut,
is a short stretch of sidewalk between
the Shubert Theatre and the Taft Hotel,
surrounded by what looks
very much like a small city.
It is here that managers have
what are called out-of-town openings,
which are openings for New Yorkers
who want to go out of town.
What a day. What a heavenly day.
-D-day.
-Just like it.
Tomorrow morning,
you will have won your beachhead
on the shores of immortality.
Stop rehearsing your column.
Isnt it strange, Addison?
I thought I'd be panic-stricken,
want to run away or something.
Instead, I can't wait for tonight
to come. To come and go.
Are you that sure of tomorrow?
-Aren't you?
-Frankly, yes.
It'll be a night to remember.
It'll bring me everything I've ever wanted.
The end of an old road,
the beginning of a new one.
-All paved with diamonds and gold?
-You know me better than that.
Paved with what, then?
Stars.
What time?
Almost four.
Plenty of time for a nice, long nap.
We rehearsed most of last night.
You could sleep now, couldn't you?
-Why not?
-The mark of a true killer.
Sleep tight, rest easy
and come out fighting.
Why did you call me a killer?
Did I say killer? I meant champion.
I get my boxing terms mixed.
Addison, come in for a minute, will you?
I've got something to tell you.
Suites are for expense accounts.
You're being extravagant.
Max is paying for it. He and Lloyd
had a terrific row, but Lloyd insisted.
-Can I fix you a drink?
-With the reluctant compliments of Max?
Lloyd. I never have any.
He likes a few drinks after we finish,
so he sent it up.
Some plain soda. Lloyd must be
expecting a record run in New Haven.
That's for tonight. You're invited.
We're having everyone up
after the performance.
"We are?"
Lloyd and I.
I find it odd that Karen
isn't here for the opening.
-Addison...
-She was always so devoted to Lloyd.
One would think only death
could keep her...
Addison.
I said this would be a night to remember,
that it would bring me all I ever wanted.
Oh, yes.
Something about an old road ending
and a new one starting,
all paved with stars.
I didn't mean just the theatre.
What else?
Lloyd Richards.
He's going to leave Karen.
We're going to be married.
So that's it. Lloyd.
Still just the theatre, after all.
It's nothing of the kind.
Lloyd loves me. I love him.
I know nothing of Lloyd's loves.
I leave those to Louisa May Alcott.
But I know you.
I'm in love with Lloyd.
He is a commercially
successful playwright.
-You have no right to say that.
-And, artistically, very promising.
Eve, dear, this is Addison.
Oh, Addison, won't it be just perfect?
Lloyd and I.
There's no telling how far we can go.
He'll write great plays for me.
I'll make them great.
You're the only one who knows,
except Lloyd and me.
-And Karen.
-She doesn't know.
-She knows enough not to be here.
-But not all of it.
-Not that Lloyd and I are gonna be married.
-I see.
And when was this unholy alliance joined?
We decided night before last,
before we came up here.
I trust the setting was properly romantic.
Lights on dimmers
and gypsy violins offstage.
The setting wasn't romantic,
but Lloyd was.
He woke me up at three o'clock
in the morning, banging on my door.
He couldn't sleep, he said. He'd left Karen.
Couldn't go on with the play or anything
else until I promised to marry him.
We sat and talked until it was light.
He never went home.
-You sat and talked until it was light?
-We sat and talked, Addison.
I want a run-of-the-play contract.
There never was, and there
never will be, another like you.
Well, say something. Anything.
Congratulations. Skl. Good work, Eve.
What do you take me for?
I don't know
that I "take you" for anything.
Is it possible that you've confused me
with those backward children
you've played tricks on?
That you have the same contempt
for me as for them?
I'm sure you mean something,
but I don't know what.
Look closely, Eve. It's time you did.
I am Addison DeWitt.
I'm nobody's fool, least of all yours.
-I never intended you to be.
-Yes, you did, and you still do.
I don't know what you mean.
But I want to take my nap. It's important...
-It's important that we talk, killer to killer.
-Champion to champion.
Not with me, you're no champion.
You're stepping up.
Please say what you have to say,
plainly and distinctly,
and then let me take my nap.
Very well. Although it's unnecessary,
because you know what I'm going to say.
Lloyd may leave Karen,
but he will not leave Karen for you.
-What do you mean by that?
-More plainly and more distinctly?
I have not come to New Haven
to see the play, discuss your dreams,
or pull the ivy from the walls of Yale.
I came to tell you that you will
not marry Lloyd, or anyone else,
because I will not permit it.
-What have you got to do with it?
-Everything.
Because after tonight
you will belong to me.
Belong? To you?
I can't believe my ears.
A dull clich.
"Belong" to you?
That sounds medieval.
Something out of an old melodrama.
So does the history of the world
for the past 20 years.
I don't enjoy putting it this bluntly.
I'd hoped that you would have
taken it for granted that you and I...
"Taken it for granted?"
"That you and I...?"
Now remember, as long as you live,
never to laugh at me.
At anything or anyone else,
but never at me.
-Get out.
-You're too short for that gesture.
Besides, it went out with Mrs. Fiske.
Then if you won't get out,
I'll have you thrown out.
Don't pick up that phone.
Don't even touch it.
Something told you to do
what I said, didn't it?
That instinct is worth millions.
You can't buy it, Eve. Cherish it.
When that alarm goes off,
go to your battle stations.
To begin with, your name is not Eve
Harrington. It's Gertrude Slescynski.
What of it?
True, your parents were poor,
and still are.
They would like to know how you are.
They haven't heard from you
for three years.
What of it?
A matter of opinion, granted.
It's also true you worked in a brewery.
But life there was not as dull
as you pictured it.
It got less and less dull, until your boss's
wife had your boss followed by detectives.
-She never proved a thing!
-But the $500 you got to get out of town
brought you straight to New York,
didn't it?
That $500 brought you
straight to New York.
She was a liar. She was a liar!
Answer my question.
Weren't you paid to get out of town?
There was no Eddie, no pilot.
You've never been married.
That was not only a lie,
it was an insult to dead heroes
and the women who loved them.
San Francisco has no Shubert Theatre.
You've never been to San Francisco.
That was a stupid lie, easy to expose,
not worthy of you.
I had to get in to meet Margo.
I had to say something, be somebody.
Make her like me!
She did like you.
She helped and trusted you.
-You repaid her by trying to win Bill.
-That's not true!
I was there. I saw you and heard you
through the dressing-room door.
You used my name to blackmail Karen
into getting you the part of Cora.
-You lied to me about it.
-No!
I had lunch with Karen
not three hours ago.
As always with women who try to find out
things, she told more than she learnt.
Now do you want to change your story
about Lloyd beating at your door
that night?
Please, please.
That I should want you at all suddenly
strikes me as the height of improbability.
But that in itself is probably the reason.
You're an improbable person, Eve,
and so am I. We have that in common.
Also a contempt for humanity,
an inability to love and be loved.
Insatiable ambition and talent.
We deserve each other.
Are you listening to me?
-Then say so.
-Yes, Addison.
And you realize and you agree
how completely you belong to me?
Yes, Addison.
Then take your nap,
and good luck for tonight.
I won't play tonight.
I couldn't. Not possibly. I couldn't go on.
"Couldn't go on"?
You'll give the performance of your life.
And she gave
the performance of her life.
And it was a night to remember,
that night.
Honored members of
the Sarah Siddons Society,
distinguished guests,
ladies and gentlemen.
What is there for me to say?
Everything wise and witty
has long since been said
by minds more mature
and talents far greater than mine.
For me to thank you as equals
would be presumptuous.
I am an apprentice in the theatre,
and have much to learn from all of you.
Let me say only that I am proud and happy,
and that I regard this great honor
not so much as an award
for what I have achieved,
but as a standard to hold against
what I have yet to accomplish.
And, further, that I regard it
as bestowed upon me only in part.
The larger share belongs
to my friends in the theatre,
and to the theatre itself
which has given me all I have.
In good conscience,
I must give credit where credit is due.
To Max Fabian. Dear Max.
Dear sentimental, generous,
courageous Max Fabian,
who took a chance on
an unknown, untried amateur.
To my first friend in the theatre,
whose kindness and graciousness
I shall never forget,
Karen. Mrs. Lloyd Richards.
It was Karen who first brought me
to one whom I'd always idolized,
one who became
my benefactress and champion.
A great actress and a great woman,
Margo Channing.
To my director,
who demanded always a little more
than my talent could provide,
but who taught me patiently and well,
Bill Sampson.
And one without whose
great play and faith in me,
this night could never have been.
How can I repay Lloyd Richards?
How can I repay the many others,
so many,
I couldn't possibly name them all,
whose help, guidance, and advice
have made this, the happiest
night of my life, possible.
Although I am going to Hollywood
next week to make a film,
do not think for a moment
that I am leaving you.
How could I?
My heart is here in the theatre,
and 3,000 miles are too far
to be away from one's heart.
I'll be back to claim it, and soon.
That is, if you want me back.
Good night to you all,
and to all, a good night.
For services rendered beyond
whatever it is of duty, darling.
Come on, I'm the host. I got to get home
before my guests start stealing the liquor.
-Congratulations, Eve.
-Thank you, Karen.
-Congratulations, Miss Harrington.
-Oh, thank you so much.
Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn't worry
too much about your heart.
You can always put that award
where your heart ought to be.
I don't suppose there's a drink left?
-You can have one at Max's.
-I don't think I'm going.
-Why not?
-Because I don't want to.
-I'm so happy for you, Eve.
-Thank you so much.
Max has gone to a lot of trouble.
This is going to be an elaborate party
and it's for you.
No, it isn't. It's for this.
-It's the same thing, isn't it?
-Exactly.
Here, take it to the party instead of me.
You're being very childish.
-I'm tired. I want to go home.
-Very well. I'll drop you off.
I shall go to the party alone.
I have no intention of missing it.
-Who are you?
-Miss Harrington.
-What are you doing here?
-I... I guess I fell asleep.
Please don't have me arrested.
I didn't steal anything. You can search me.
-How did you get in here?
-I hid outside till the maid came in.
She went out to get something
and left the door open.
I sneaked in and hid till she'd finished.
Then I just looked around.
I was afraid someone would notice
the lights were on, so I turned them off.
-Then I guess I fell asleep.
-You were just looking around?
-That's all.
-What for?
-You probably won't believe me.
-Probably not.
-It was for my report.
-What report? To whom?
About how you live,
what kind of clothes you wear,
what kind of perfume
and books, things like that.
You know the Eve Harrington Club that
they have in most girls' high schools?
-I've heard of them.
-Ours was one of the first, Erasmus Hall.
-I'm the president.
-Erasmus Hall. That's in Brooklyn, isn't it?
Lots of actresses come from Brooklyn.
Barbara Stanwyck and Susan Hayward.
Of course, they're just movie stars.
You're going to Hollywood, aren't you?
Mm-hm.
From the trunks you're packing,
you must be going to stay a long time.
I might.
That spilled drink's gonna ruin your carpet.
Maid'll fix it in the morning.
-I'll just clean up the mess.
-Don't bother.
-How'd you get up here from Brooklyn?
-Subway.
How long does it take?
With changing and everything,
a little over an hour.
It's after one now.
You won't get home till all hours.
I don't care if I never get home.
That's the door.
You rest. I'll get it.
Hello. Who are you?
Miss Harrington's resting, Mr. DeWitt.
She asked me to see who it is.
Well, we won't disturb her rest.
It seems Miss Harrington left her award
in the taxi cab. Will you give it to her?
Tell me, how did you know my name?
It's a very famous name, Mr. DeWitt.
-And what's your name?
-Phoebe.
-Phoebe?
-I call myself Phoebe.
And why not?
Tell me, Phoebe, do you want someday
to have an award like that of your own?
-More than anything else in the world.
-Then ask Miss Harrington how to get one.
Miss Harrington knows all about it.
Who was it?
Just a taxi driver, Miss Harrington.
You left your award in his cab,
and he brought it back.
Put it on one of the trunks,
will you? I wanna pack it.
Sure, Miss Harrington.