All About Eve (1950)

Screenplay Genre: Drama

Movie Time: 138 minutes

1. INCITING INCIDENT

Eve (Anne Baxter) has seen every performance of Margo Channing’s (Bette Davis) latest play “Aged in Wood” on Broadway and is an adoring fan. Margo’s best friend and wife to the playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), Karen (Celeste Holm), invites Eve backstage one night to meet Margo for the first time. (00:12:48)

2. LOCK IN (End of Act One)

Eve moves in with Margo after Margo’s boyfriend, the famous director Bill Simpson  (Gary Merrill), leaves for Hollywood. Eve becomes her “sister, lawyer, mother friend and cop” and as Margo puts it, “The honeymoon was on.” (00:27:50)

3. FIRST CULMINATION (Midpoint)

Eve is now Margo’s new understudy in “Aged in Wood” and this launches Margo into a paranoiac argument with the playwright, producer and the director, her lover Bill. When Margo refuses to stop her jealous, sporadic behavior, Bill leaves her. (1:15:10)

4. MAIN CULMINATION (End of Act Two)

Eve begs Karen to convince Lloyd to give her the part of Cora in his new play “Footsteps.” Eve threatens to blackmail Karen, saying Addison will print the story of how Karen planned to make Margo miss the performance where Eve went on. To Karen’s luck, Margo finally admits to herself that she is too old to play the part anyway. (1:46:22)

5. THIRD ACT TWIST

Eve tells Addison that she and Lloyd are to be married and that he’s left Karen. Addison says that that will never happen and that Eve belongs to him because he knows her true identity. She’s been lying to everyone and wrote the article that shunned Margo herself. (2:01:40)