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Six Damn Fine Degrees #196: Thelma Ritter

Julie2 Comments

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

“She could reveal to an audience the tragedy of the human condition and do it by being a supreme comedienne” ~ Paddy Chayefsky on Thelma Ritter.

The term ‘character actor’, when applied to women, too often only implies a woman of a certain age. The one who doesn’t get to be the lead, who doesn’t get her own movie romance. If, that is, there are even any parts for her at all. The one who is ‘just’ there for support. But these actors not only have to hold their own against the lead every moment they are on screen, they need to knock it out of the park on every single take. And Thelma Ritter is the real deal. Instantly recognisable with her looks, and the way she sounds: instead of having herself made over to be more palatable for the public, she embraced these things to great effect. Every scene she was in, even her uncredited early roles, however brief, are memorable.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #128: A case for All About Eve

Julie4 Comments

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

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Anyone you can be, I can be better: All About Eve and The Talented Mr Ripley

Matt4 Comments

I must have seen All About Eve at least half a dozen times so far. Its writing retains the sharp wit it had when I first saw it, its performances still shine: Bette Davis is perfect as Margo Channing and delivers Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ lines with relish, but the rest of the ensemble, just as central to the success of the film, is also top-notch. As a piece of filmmaking, All About Eve may not be as audacious as its contemporary Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder’s 1950 caustic tale of an ageing actress, but its appeal has not diminished. I had the opportunity to see it again a few days ago – while cinemas are open again in these parts, you’re more likely to find them showing older films rather than new releases – and it remains a delight.

It has taken me these half a dozen viewings, however, to come to the realisation that All About Eve shares some striking similarities to Patricia Highsmith’s thriller The Talented Mr Ripley (and, to a lesser extent, the film versions made of Highsmith’s novel) and that the title characters of the two works can be seen as mirror images of each other.

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The Rear-View Mirror: All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Matt2 Comments

Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!

As someone once said, there’s two kinds of people in this world, Elvis people and Beatles people. I know which side of that particular divide I’m on, but I sometimes get the impression there’s a similar divide among some movie critics and fans. Which of the two eviscerations of aging actresses is your favourite: Billy Wilder’s genre-busting, darkly comic Sunset Boulevard, arguably one of the director’s best films, or the sharp, witty, but stylistically relatively tame All About Eve by Joseph L. Mankiewicz?

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