All language subtitles for 2 All about Eve

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 as essential to the theatre
as ants are to a picnic...

...as the boll weevil to a cotton field

The Sarah Siddons Award for distinguished
achievement is perhaps unknown to you

It is the highest honour our theatre knows

This is Karen Richards. She is the wife of a playwright,
therefore of the theatre by marriage

Nothing in her background or breeding should have
brought her any closer to the stage than row E centre

However, during her senior year at Radcliffe,
Lloyd Richards lectured on drama

The following year Karen became Mrs Lloyd Richards.
Lloyd is the author of Footsteps on the Ceiling...

...the play which has won the Sarah Siddons Award
for Eve Harrington

Eve... but more of Eve, later.
All about Eve, in fact

There are 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 for 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

The main job of the director,
in this case Bill Sampson...

...is to construct a tower so that the world
can applaud a light which flashes on top of it

The light of the star, and no brighter star
has ever dazzled the eye than Eve Harrington

The part for which she has received the award
was intended originally for Margo Channing

Margo made her first stage appearance at the age of
four, she played a fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream

She entered, quite unexpectedly, stark naked.
She has been a star ever since

A true star.
She never was or will be anything less

But now there is 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 when and where...

...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

Where was she? Strange... I had 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 there

- Why should you think I wouldn't be?
- Why should you be?

After all, six nights a week for weeks watching
Margo Channing enter and leave the theatre

I hope you don't mind me speaking to you.
You and your husband are Miss Channing's best friends

- And Mr Sampson of course. What's he like?
- Bill? He's a director

- He's the best
- He'll agree with you

Tell me, what do you do
between the time Margo goes in and comes out?

- I see the play
- You've seen the play every performance?

I'm going to take you to Margo. She's got to meet you

No, I'd be imposing on her,
I'd be just another tongue-tied gushing fan

There isn't another like you, there couldn't be

But if I'd known... maybe some other time.
I mean, looking like this

You look just fine by the way.
What's your name?

Eve. Eve Harrington

Eve Harrington. Come on

You can breathe it, can't you?
Like some magic perfume

You wait there a minute. Don't run away

Lloyd, honey, be a playwright with guts. Write me a play
about a nice, normal woman who shoots her husband

- Hi
- Hello, darling

- Lemme fix you a drink
- No thanks, Birdie

- You need new girdles
- Then buy some

- The same size?
- Of course

Well, I guess a real tight girdle helps
when you're playing a lunatic

Margo does not play a lunatic, Birdie

I know. She just keeps
hearing her dead father play the banjo

- It's the tight girdle that does it
- I find these wisecracks increasingly less funny

Aged in Wood happens to be
a fine and distinguished play

- My loyal little woman
- Terrible title

The critics thought so, the audiences certainly think so.
Packed houses, tickets for months in advance

I can't see that either of Lloyd's last two plays
have hurt you any

- Easy, now
- Relax, kid. It's only me and my big mouth

It's just that you get me so mad sometimes. Of all the
women in the world 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 wind and rain

Autograph fiends! They're not people,
those little beasts who run in packs like coyotes

- They're your fans, your audience
- They are nobody's fans

They're juvenile delinquents, mental defectives

They're nobody's audience, they've never seen a play
or a movie, even. They're never indoors long enough

Well, there's one indoors now.
I've brought her back to see you

- You've what?
- She's just outside the door

- The heave-ho
- 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, Karen, those days are gone

Fans no longer pull the carriage through the streets.
They tear off clothes and steal wrist watches

If you'd only see her, you're her whole life.
You must have spotted her by now, she's always there

The mousy one in the trench coat?
How could I miss her? Every night and matinée, well...

Once George Jessel of The Jazz Singer
played my hometown

For a girl, getting in to see him was easy.
Getting out was the problem

- 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, Mr Richards

And this is my good friend
and companion, Birdie Coonan

- Oh, brother
- Miss Coonan

- Oh brother what?
- When she gets like this

All of a sudden she's 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're normal
- Dear Birdie

- Won't you sit down, Miss Worthington?
- Harrington

- I'm so sorry... Harrington. Won't you sit down?
- Thank you

Would you like a drink?

I was telling Margo and Lloyd
about how often you'd 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
- 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 that part of Miss Channing's greatness
lies in her ability to choose the best plays

- And there is so little to choose from these days
- Margo!

And there's always the playwright's problem,
whom can we borrow from Hollywood to play it?

Your new play is for Miss Channing,
isn't it, Mr Richards?

- Of course it is
- How'd you hear about it?

There was an item in The Times.
I like the title, Footsteps on the Ceiling

Have you really seen every performance?
Why? I'm curious

Well, if I didn't come and 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 family, a home
- Tell us all about it, Eve

- If I only knew how
- Try

- Well... it started with the play before this one
- Remembrance

- Did you see it here in New York?
- San Francisco

It was the last week. I went one night.
The most important night in my life until this one

Anyway, I found myself going the next night
and the next and the next. Every performance

Then, when the show went East, I went East

I will never forget that blizzard
the night we played Cheyenne

A cold night. First time I ever saw
a brassiere break like a piece of matzo

- Eve, why don't you start at the beginning?
- It couldn't possibly interest you

- Please
- Well...

I guess it started back home. Wisconsin, that is.
There was just Mom and Dad and me

I was the only child, and I made believe a lot
as a kid, I 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 that I couldn't tell the real from the unreal
except that the unreal seemed more real to me

- We need more gin
- Buy some

- I'm talking a lot of gibberish, aren't I
- No, not at all. Please

Farmers were poor in those days.
That's what Dad was, a farmer

I had to help out. So I quit school
and I became a secretary in a brewery

It wasn't much fun, but it helped at home

And there was a little theatre group
like a drop of rain in the desert

That's where I met Eddie. He was a radio technician

We played Our Town for three performances,
I was awful

Then the war came, and we got married. Eddie was
in the air force and they sent him to the South Pacific

With Eddie gone, my life went back to beer.
Except for a letter a week

One week Eddie wrote he had a leave coming up

I went to San Francisco to meet him

Eddie wasn't there

A message came from Washington
to say Eddie wasn't coming at all

That Eddie was dead

I was alone, but I couldn't go back without Eddie

What a story. Everything but the bloodhounds
snapping at her rear end

There are some human experiences, Birdie,
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's...
- You do not 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

As for being fifth-rate... I closed the first half
for eleven years and you know it

Please go on

Well, I figured I'd stay in San Francisco

And one night Margo Channing came to play
in Remembrance and I went to see it

And well... here I am

Forty-five minutes from now my plane takes off
and how do I find you?

- Not ready yet, looking like a junk yard
- Thank you so much

Is it sabotage, does my career mean nothing to you?
Have you no human consideration?

- Show me a human and I might have
- Bill...

The airlines have clocks, even if you haven't.
I start shooting a week from Monday

20th Century Fox is impatient, they want me,
Zanuck needs me

- Bill...
- Zanuck, Zanuck, Zanuck! What are you two, lovers?

- Only in some ways. You're prettier
- I'm a junk yard

- Bill!
- Yes?

- This is Eve Harrington
- Hi

My wonderful junk yard!
The mystery and dreams you find in a junk yard

Heaven help me, I love a psychotic

- Hello, what's your name?
- Eve. Eve Harrington

- You've already met
- Where?

- Right here. A minute ago
- That's nice

- She too is a great admirer of yours
- Imagine. All this admiration in just one room

Take Margo into the bathroom and dress her.
Without comment

- You're not going, are you?
- I think I'd better

It's been... well, 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

Stick around, please. Tell you what, we'll put
Mr Stanislavsky here on his plane, you and I...

...and then we'll go somewhere and talk

- Well, if I'm not in the way
- I won't be a minute

Lloyd, we've got to go.
Margo, good night! I'll call you tomorrow

- Good luck, genius
- Geniuses don't need good luck. I do

- I'm not worried about you
- Keep the thought, Lloyd

- Good night, Eve. I hope I see you again soon
- I'll be at the old stand tomorrow matinée

- Not just that way. As a friend
- I'd like that

- It's been a real pleasure, Eve
- I hope so, Mr Richards. Goodnight Mrs Richards

I'll never forget this night as long as I live.
And I'll never forget you for making it possible

- You said forty-five minutes. You'll never make it
- I told a lie. We'll make it easily

Margo's got no more conception of time than a halibut

- So you're going to Hollywood
- 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?
- Most of it will go for taxes

Then why? Why, if you're the best
and most successful young director in the theatre

The Theatre, the Theatre...

What book of rules says the theatre exists
only within some ugly buildings...

...crowded into one square mile of New York City?
Or London, Paris or Vienna?

Listen, junior. You want to 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,
Zorro and Sarah Bernhardt

You don't understand them all,
you don't like them all, why should you?

The theatre is for everybody, you included,
but not exclusively, so don't approve or disapprove

It may not be your theatre,
but it's theatre of somebody, somewhere

- I just asked a simple question
- And I shot my mouth off

Nothing personal, junior, no offence.
Sometime it gets up around my chin

But Hollywood. You mustn't stay there

- It's only one picture deal
- So few come back

Yeah. They keep you under drugs out there
with armed guards

- I read Addison DeWitt every week
- You didn't have to tell me

Where's my coat?

- Right where you left it
- I'll get it

- She's quite a girl. What's her name?
- Eve. I'd forgotten they grew that way

The lack of pretence,
that sort of strange directness and understanding

- Did she tell you about the theatre and what it meant?
- I told her. I sounded off

All the religions in the world rolled into one,
and we're gods and goddesses

Isn't it silly, suddenly I've developed a big protective
feeling for her, a lamb loose in our big stone jungle

- Take care of yourself out there
- I understand they got the Indians pretty well in hand

- Bill...
- Huh?

- Don't get stuck on some glamour puss
- I'll try

You're not such a bargain, you know,
you're conceited and thoughtless and messy

Everybody can't be Gregory Peck

You're a setup for some gorgeous
wide-eyed young babe

How childish are you going to get
before you quit it?

I don't want to be childish,
I'd settle for just a few years

- Cut that out right now
- Am I going to lose you, Bill? Am I?

As of this moment you are six years old

All ready. Goodbye, Mr Sampson

Hey junior, keep your eyes on her.
Don't let her get lonely. She's a loose lamb in a jungle

Don't worry

That same night Margo sent for Eve's things,
her few pitiful possessions

Eve moved into the little guest room on the top floor

She cried when she saw it.
It was so like her little room back home in Wisconsin

The next three weeks were out of a fairy tale
and Margo was Cinderella in the last act

Eve became her sister, lawyer, mother,
friend, psychiatrist and cop. The honeymoon was on

What, again?

I could watch you play that last scene
a thousand times and cry every time

Performance number one thousand 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

No, I mean the performance.
Except for you, you'd think he'd never even directed it

- It's disgraceful the way they change everything around
- Well, teacher's away and actors will be actors

During your second act scene with your father, Roger
Ferraday is supposed to stay way upstage at the arch

- He's been coming closer down every night
- When he gets too close, I'll spit in his eye

Birdie, you bought the new girdles a size smaller.
I can feel it

Something maybe grew a size bigger

When we get home you're going to get into
one of those girdles and act for two and 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

Oh Eve, you've done so much

It's all lovely. Isn't it lovely, Birdie?

Adorable. Now we've 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, and I appreciate it

While you're cleaning up,
I'll just take this over to the wardrobe mistress

- Don't bother. Mrs Brown'll be along for it in a minute
- It's no trouble at all

If I might so bold as to say something,
did you ever hear the word 'union'?

- Behind in your dues? How much?
- I haven't got a union. I'm slave labour

- Well?
- But the wardrobe women have got one

And next to a tenor, a wardrobe woman
is the touchiest thing in show business

She's got two things to do.
Carry clothes, and press 'em wrong

And just let anybody else muscle in

Eve, I think we'd better let Mrs Brown
pick up the wardrobe

Margo?

Did you order a call?

- A call, what call?
- For 12 midnight California time

I don't understand. A call I placed
for 12 midnight, California time?

Put it on speaker

- Hello
- Margo!

What a wonderful surprise!
What a thoughtful, ever-loving thing to do

- Bill? Have I gone crazy?
- 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 all wrapped up,
we previewed last night

Those previews!
Like opening out of town, but terrifying

There's nothing you can do,
you're trapped, you're in a tin can

I want you home. Be quick about it

- Good night, darling, and sleep tight
- Wait a minute!

- You can't hang up, you haven't even said it
- Bill, you know how much I do

It doesn't happen every day, I want to hear it

- And if you won't say it, you can sing it
- Sing it?

Bill... It's your birthday!

And who remembered it?
Who was there on the dot, at twelve midnight?

Happy birthday, darling

The reading could have 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 welcome home

- Who'll I ask?
- It's no secret, I know all about the party

- Eve wrote me
- She did?

She hasn't missed a week since I left. But you
know all that, you probably tell her what to write

Anyway, I sent her a list of people to ask.
Check with her

- Yeah, I will
- How is Eve? Okay?

- Okay
- I love you

- I'll check with Eve
- What?

- I love you too, darling. Good night and sleep tight
- See you

- Birdie?
- Uh-huh?

- You don't like Eve, do you?
- Do you want an argument or an answer?

- An answer
- No

- Why not?
- Now you want an argument

- She works hard, doesn't she?
- Night and day

- She's loyal and efficient
- Like an agent with one client

- She thinks only for me, doesn't she?
- Well, let's say she thinks only about you, anyway

- How do you mean that?
- I'll tell you how

It's like... it's like she was studying you,
like you was a play or a book or a set of blueprints

How you walk, talk, think, eat, sleep

I'm sure that's very flattering, Birdie,
I'm sure there's nothing wrong with that

Good morning!
Well, what do you think of my...

- ...elegant new suit?
- Very becoming

- It looks better on you than it did on me
- I can imagine

You know, all it needed
was a little taking in here and letting out there

- Are you sure you won't want it for yourself?
- Quite sure

I find it just a bit too... 'seventeenish' for me

Oh, come now, as if you were an old lady!

Right, I'm on my way.
Is there anything more you've thought of?

- There's that script to go back to the Guild
- Yes, got it

And those cheques or whatever it is...

- ...for the Income Tax man
- Right here

It seems I can't think of a thing
you haven't already thought of

That's my job. See you at tea time

Eve... by any chance, did you place a call
from me to Bill for midnight California time?

- Oh, golly. And I forgot to tell you
- Yes, dear. You forgot all about it

Well, I was sure you'd want to, of course,
being his birthday

And you've been so busy these past few days,
and last night I meant to tell you...

...before you went out with the Richards
and I guess I was asleep when you got back

Yes, I guess you were

It was very thoughtful of you, Eve

Mr Sampson's birthday. I certainly wouldn't forget that.
You'd never forgive me

Bill's welcoming-home-birthday party

A night to go down in history,
like the Chicago Fire or the Massacre of the Huguenots

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?
- Almost. Did the extra help get here?

There's some stray characters
dressed like maids and butlers

Who did you call? The William Morris Agency?

You're not being funny.
I could have gotten actors for less

- What about the food?
- The caterers had to go back for the hors d'œuvres

Voilà!

- That French ventriloquist taught you a lot, didn't he?
- There was nothing he didn't know

- Did we order domestic gin by mistake?
- The only thing I ordered by mistake is the guests

They're domestic, too, and 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 twenty minutes

Well, I certainly think it's odd he hasn't even come up

- Looks like I'm going to have a very fancy party
- I thought you were going to be late

- When I'm guest of honour?
- I didn't even know you were here

- I ran into Eve, she told me you were dressing
- That's never stopped you before

Well, she wanted to know all about Hollywood,
she seemed so interested

- She's a girl of so many interests
- It's a pretty rare quality these days

- She's 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, affection.
And so young. So young and so fair

I can't believe you're making this up. You know
what I think about this... this age obsession of yours

And now this ridiculous attempt
to whip yourself up into a jealous froth...

...because I spent ten minutes
with a stage-struck kid

- Twenty minutes!
- Thirty minutes, forty minutes! What of it?

Stage-struck kid!
She's a young lady... of qualities

And I am fed up with both the young lady
and her qualities

Studying me as if I were a play or a set of blueprints
or something. How I walk, talk, think, eat, sleep

Now how can you take offence at a kid trying
in every way to be as much like her ideal as possible?

Stop calling her a kid!
It so 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

Darling, there are certain characteristics
for which you are famous, on stage and off

I love you for some of them and in spite of others.
I haven't let those become too important to me

They're part of your equipment for getting along
in what is laughably called our environment

You've got to keep your teeth sharp. All right.
But you will not sharpen them on me or on Eve

- What about her teeth? What about her fangs?
- She hasn't cut them yet, and you know it

Eve Harrington has never by word, look,
thought or suggestion indicated anything to me...

...but her adoration for you
and her happiness at our being in love

And to intimate anything else
doesn't spell jealousy to me

It spells a paranoid insecurity
that you should be ashamed of

Cut! Print it! What happens in the next reel?
Do I get dragged off screaming to the snake pit?

Miss Channing?
The hors d'œuvres 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 milkshake?

A Martini. Very dry, please

- Genius is back!
- Happy birthday!

- May I take your coat?
- Don't bother

- Please
- Thank you, Eve

- I like that girl. That quality of quiet graciousness
- Among so many quiet qualities

Margo, nothing you've ever done
has made me as happy as your taking Eve in

I'm so happy you're happy

Look, you haven't been running a settlement house
exactly, the kid's earned her way

You had a pretty mixed-up inventory when she
took over. Merchandise laying all over the shop

I think you've got Margo mixed up
with a five-and-ten-cent store

Make it Bergdorf Goodman. And now everything
is on its proper shelf, eh, Max?

Done up in little ribbons. I could die right now
and nobody would be confused

- How about you, Max?
- How about me what?

Suppose you dropped dead.
What about your inventory?

I ain't gonna die. Not with a hit

This is the most ghoulish conversation

- Thank you
- Nothing, really

The kid, junior that is, will be right down.
Unless of course you'd like to take her drink up to her

I can always get a fresh one. Karen

The general atmosphere is very Macbeth-ish.
What has or is about to happen?

- What is he talking about?
- Macbeth

We know you, we've seen you before like this.
Is it over or just beginning?

Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night

Belated happy birthday, Bill,
and welcome back to civilization

- Addison, how nice
- Margo

I distinctly remember striking your name
from the guest list. What are you doing here?

Dear Margo, you were an unforgettable Peter Pan.
You must play it again soon

- You remember Claudia Caswell?
- I do not

- How do you do?
- We never met. That's why

Claudia is an actress.
A graduate of the School of Dramatic Arts

- 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 have met only in passing

That's how you met me. In passing

Eve, this is an old friend of Addison DeWitt's mother.
Claudia Caswell, Eve Harrington

Addison, I've been wanting you
to meet Eve for the longest time

It could only have been your natural humility
that kept you from mentioning it

- You've heard of her great 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 to talk

Claudia dear, that is Max Fabian.
He is a producer. Go do yourself some good

- Why do they always look like such unhappy rabbits?
- Because that is what they are. Go make him happy

You mustn't worry about your little charge.
She is in safe hands

Amen

Many Martinis later. Margo, staring moodily
into her glass, sat on the bench beside the pianist

He'd just finished The Sandman

- Sandman
- He just played it

- Play it again
- That was the fourth time

Well then, this will be five.
I suppose you think I'm too drunk to count

- No. You're just crazy about Sandman
- Sandman

But you know, if you don't mind my saying so,
it's kind of depressing

Everybody's kind of dying on the vine

In the first place, I'm paying him union scale.
Second, it's my piano

Third, if everybody doesn't like kind of dying
on the vine, they can get off the vine and go home

Sandman

Ooo, the Sandman
Comes to me in dreams

Ooo, the Sandman
Brings me love, and sleep

Into my eyes
One thousand joys he leaves

The moon appears,
One thousand fears arise

The Sandman's gone
When morning comes

Goodbye

Many of your guests have been 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

Then, without feeling, 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 got
bicarbonate of soda in the house?

Poor Max. Heartburn? It's that Claudia Caswell.
I don't know why she doesn't give Addison heartburn

- No heart to burn
- Everybody's got a heart. Except some people

Of course I've got bicarb, Max.
There's a box in the bathroom

I'll put your name on it. Max Fabian.
It'll 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 got friends
- I love you, Max. Really, I mean it, I love you

She loves me like a father

Also, she's loaded

Here you go, Maxie dear. One good burp
and you'll be rid of that Claudia Caswell

The situation I'm in ain't the kind
you can belch your way out

- I made a promise
- Claudia Caswell? What?

An audition for the part we're replacing.
What's-her-name, your sister in Aged in Wood

Well, if she can act, she might not be bad

- She looks like she might burn down a plantation
- I feel right now like there's one burning in me

- When's the audition?
- A couple of weeks

- I tell you what. Why don't I read with her?
- Would you?

- Anything to help you out, Max
- This is real cooperation. I appreciate it

Don't mention it.
And you could do me a favour, if you would

All you got to do is name it

Give Eve Harrington a job in your office

You get quick action, don't you?

Margo, I wouldn't think
of taking that girl away from you

You said yourself that my inventory is in good shape.
All my merchandise put away

To keep her here with nothing to do...
I'd be standing in her way, Max, and you need her

- But what could she do?
- She'd be a great help

She could read scripts, and interview people you have
to meet, and get rid of the ones you don't have to

- You'd be a man of leisure
- Well...

Think of your health, Max. More time to relax,
out in the fresh air at a race track

I don't know if this would be a wise move

- Promise?
- I promise

That's my Max

Max, Karen has decided it's time to leave

- Where is she?
- In the kitchen

If you'll excuse me.
I'll tell Claudia Caswell

- Who's left in there?
- Too many. And Margo, you've got a new guest

- A movie star from Hollywood
- Shucks. And I left my autograph book at the cleaners

- You disapprove of me when I'm like this, don't you?
- Sometimes I wish I understood you better

- When you do, will you let me in on it?
- I will

- How's the new one coming?
- The play? All right, I guess

- Cora. Still a girl of thirty?
- Thirtyish. It isn't 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,
after all they're my plays

Spoken like an author

Lloyd, I'm not thirtyish. I am not fortyish.
Three months ago, I was fifty years old. Fifty. Five-o

That slipped out.
I hadn't quite made up my mind to admit that yet

Now I suddenly feel as if I'd taken off all my clothes

Oh well, week after week, to thousands of people
you're as young as you want

As young as they want, you mean

And I'm not interested in whether
thousands of people think I'm six or six hundred

No, it's just one person, isn't that so?

And this has very little to do
with whether you should play Cora

It has everything to do with the fact
that you've had another fight with Bill

Bill's forty-two. He looks forty two

He looked it five years ago,
he'll look it twenty 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

Now 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 gets cold

Hollywood

- Tell me, Eve. how are things with you? Happy?
- There should be a new word for happiness

Being here with Miss Channing has been so wonderful,
she's done so much for me

You've done your share, Eve.
You've worked wonders with Margo

- Mrs Richards...
- Karen

Karen... Isn't it awful, I'm about to ask you
for another favour. After all you've already done

Nobody's done so much, Eve, you've got to stop thinking
of yourself as one of the Hundred Neediest Cases

- What is it?
- Well...

Miss Channing's affairs are in such good shape,
there isn't enough to keep me as busy as I should be

Not that I've ever considered anything
that would take me away from her

But the other day,
when I heard Mr Fabian tell Miss Channing...

...that her understudy was going to have a baby,
and they'd have to replace her...

- You want to be Margo's new understudy?
- I don't let myself think about it

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

But suppose I had to go on one night?
To an audience that came to see Margo Channing

- No, I couldn't possibly
- Don'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

As a matter of fact, I see no reason
why you shouldn't be Margo's understudy

- Do you think Miss Channing would approve?
- I think she would cheer

- But Mr Sampson and Mr Richards...
- They'll do as they're told

- Will you talk to Mr Fabian about it?
- Of course

- You won't forget it?
- I won't forget

I seem to be forever thanking you
for something, don't I?

The bed looks like a dead animal act

The party went on and on

It had reached that static state when everyone seems
to have assumed a more or less permanent place

Fortunately, there was Addison De Witt

Every now and then,
some elder statesman of the theatre or cinema...

...assures the public that actors and actresses
are just plain folk

Ignoring the fact
that their greatest attraction to the public...

...is their complete lack of resemblance
to normal human beings

It is senseless to insist that theatrical folk
from New York, Hollywood and London...

...are no different from the good people of
Des Moines, Chillicothe and Liverpool

By and large, we are concentrated gatherings...

...of neurotics, egomaniacs,
emotional misfits, and precocious children

These so-called abnormalities,
they're our stock in trade

They make us musicians, actors, writers,
directors, etcetera, in the first place

Answer me this.
What makes a man become a producer?

What makes a man walk into a lion cage
with nothing but a chair?

This answer satisfies me a hundred percent

We all have abnormality in common.
We are a breed apart from the rest of humanity

We are the original displaced personalities

You don't have to read his column tomorrow,
you just heard it

- I don't agree, Addison
- That happens to be your particular abnormality, Bill

Oh, 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

- I want a drink
- Let me get you one

Oh, thank you, Mr Fabian

Well done, my dear. I see your career
rising in the East, like the sun

- You were saying?
- I was saying that the theatre is nine-tenths hard work

Work done the hard way,
by sweat, application and craftsmanship

I'll agree to this. That to be a good actor,
actress, or anything else in the theatre...

...means wanting to be that
more than anything else in the world

- Yes. Yes, it does
- It means concentration of ambition

Of desire, and sacrifice
such as no other profession demands

And I'll agree that 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

It's 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

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 mean to

Outside of a beehive, Margo, your behaviour would
hardly be considered either queenly or motherly

We're in a beehive, pal, didn't you know?

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'd gone to Radcliffe too, but Father wouldn't
hear of it. He needed help at the notions counter

I'm being rude now, aren't I?

You're maudlin and full of self-pity.
You're magnificent

- How about calling it a night?
- And you call yourself a playwright

A situation pregnant with possibilities,
and all you can think of is everybody to go to sleep

- It's a good thought
- It won't play

As a non-professional, I think it's an excellent idea.
Undramatic, but practical

- Happy little housewife
- Cut it out

This is my house, not a theatre.
In my house you are a guest, not a director

Then stop being a star.
Stop treating your guests as your supporting cast

- Hear, hear
- Let's not get into a big hassle

It's about time we did!
It's about time Margo realized...

...that what's attractive on stage
need not necessarily be attractive off

All right! I'll go to bed

You be the 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,
turn off the lights and tiptoe out?

Eve would. Wouldn't you, Eve?

- If you'd like
- I wouldn't like

- I forgot I had it
- I didn't

Too bad we'll miss the third act.
They're going to play it off stage

- Coming?
- In a minute

You mustn't mind Margo too much,
even if I do

But 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

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 want to do
so much as to kick her right square in the pants

Well, if she's got to pick on someone,
I'd just as soon it was me

Max is going to drop us

I've often wondered, Max, why you bother
with a driver and limousine in New York City

In my case it's necessary.
Too many taxi drivers write plays

Too many of them are produced

- Let's go sit by the piano
- No, my dear. I believe it's time to go

Why don't you come sit by the piano

Good night. Good night. Good night

- Karen. You won't forget it, will you?
- No, Eve, I won't forget

'This, too, will pass away', the wise man said

Two weeks later, the day of Claudia Caswell's audition,
all was well with Bill and Margo, the world and Margo

Terribly sorry I'm late.
Lunch was long and I couldn't find a cab

Where's Claudia, shall we start?

- Oh, hello, Eve
- Hello, Miss Channing

I don't want you working the child too hard, Max,
just because you promised

As you see, I kept my promise, too

Why so remote, Addison? I should think you'd be
by the side of your protégée lending moral support

Claudia, at the moment, is where I can lend
no support, moral or otherwise

- The ladies?
- Being violently ill

It's good luck before an audition.
She'll be fine once we start

She got lucky too late. The audition is over

It can't be. I've come to read with her.
I promised Max

- It's all over, Margo
- What's all over?

- The audition
- The audition was called for 2.30. It is now nearly 4

Is it really? I must start wearing a watch

Who read with Claudia?
Bill? Lloyd? It couldn't have been Max

Naturally enough, your understudy

I consider it highly unnatural to allow
a young lady in an advanced stage of pregnancy...

I refer to your new and unpregnant understudy,
Eve Harrington

- Eve! My understudy
- Didn't you know?

- Of course I knew
- It just slipped your mind

How was Claudia?

- Frankly, I don't remember
- Just slipped your mind?

Completely. Nor, I am sure, could anyone else present
tell you how Claudia read...

- ...or whether she read or rode a pogo stick
- Was she that bad?

Margo, as you know, I have lived in the theatre
as a Trappist monk lives in his faith

I have no other world, no other life,
and 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 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 and some sparkles

Tell me, was Bill swept away, too,
or were you too full of revelation to notice?

Bill didn't say, but Lloyd was beside himself.
He listened to his play...

...as if someone else had written it, 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 only because
she read lines exactly as he had written them

The implication being
that I have not been reading them as written

To the best of my recollection, neither your name
nor your performance entered the conversation

- Feeling better, my dear?
- Like I just swam the English Channel. Now what?

Your next move, it seems to me,
should be toward television

Do they have auditions for television?

That's all television is, my dear.
Nothing but auditions

So Eve has not been working for Max after all.
Max, you sly puss!

Miss Channing, I can't tell you
how glad I am you arrived so late

Really, Eve? Why?

- I wouldn't have dared to read at all
- Why not?

And if you'd come in the middle,
I'd have stopped, I couldn't have gone on

Margo, let me tell you about Eve

I was dreadful, believe me, I have no right
to be anyone's understudy, much less yours

I'm sure you underestimate yourself, Eve.
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

- To you, too?
- How do you mean?

I mean, amongst other things,
that it must have been a revelation...

...to have your thirty-year-old character
read by a thirty-year-old actress

- That's beside the point
- No, it's right to the point

Also that it must have sounded
so new and so fresh to you, so exciting...

...to have the lines read as you wrote them.
So full of meaning and fire and music!

You've been talking
to that venomous fishwife, Addison DeWitt

Who in this case, apparently,
is as trustworthy as the World Almanac

You knew when you came in that the audition was over,
that Eve was your understudy

- Playing this childish game of cat and mouse
- Not mouse, never mouse. If anything, rat!

You have a genius for making bar-room brawl
out of a perfectly innocent misunderstanding at most

Perfectly innocent! Men have been hanged for less!
I've been lied to, attacked behind my back...

...accused of reading your silly dialogue inaccurately
as if it were Holy Gospel

I never said that

'Then he listened
as if someone else had written his play'

Whom did you have in mind?
Arthur Miller? Shakespeare?

- May I say a word?
- No!

What makes you think that Miller would stand
for the nonsense I take from you?

You'd better stick to Shakespeare.
He's been dead for four hundred years

And they're getting better performances today
than they ever got

All playwrights should be dead for four hundred years

That would solve none of their problems
because actresses never die

- The stars never die and they never change
- You can change this star any time you want

For a new, fresh, 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 run-of-the-play contract,
and this you can't rewrite or ad lib

- Are you threatening me with legal action, Fabian?
- Are you breaking the contract?

- Answer my question!
- Who am I to threaten? I'm a dying man

- I didn'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 weird process by which
a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself a mind

Just when exactly does an actress decide they're her
words she's saying and her thoughts she's expressing?

Usually at the point she has to rewrite and rethink
them to keep the audience from leaving the theatre

It is about time the piano realized
it has not written the concerto

And you, I take it, are the Chopin
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.
I'm just a body with a voice. No 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. I will not be tolerated

- And I will not be plotted against
- Here we go

Such nonsense, what do you all take me for?
Little Nell from the country?

- Deciding on my understudy without consulting me
- Now don't get carried away

Shows up for an audition when everybody knew
I'd be here and gives a performance

- Out of nowhere gives a performance
- You've been all through that with Lloyd

And the playwright does not make the performance
and it doesn't just happen

And this one didn't,
full of fire and music and whatnot

It was carefully rehearsed I have no doubt,
over and over, full of those Bill Sampson touches

- I am sick and tired of these paranoiac outbursts
- Paranoiac!

I didn't know Eve Harrington was your understudy
until half past two this afternoon

Tell that to Dr Freud, along with the rest of it

No, I'll tell it to you!
For the last time, I'll tell it to you

Because you've got to stop hurting yourself, and me,
and the two of us by these paranoiac tantrums

- That word again! I don't even know what you mean
- It's time you found out

- I love you
- Ha!

I love you

- You are a beautiful and intelligent woman
- A body with a voice

A beautiful and intelligent woman
and a great actress at the peak of her career

- You have every reason for happiness
- Except happiness

Every reason, but due to some strange,
uncontrollable, unconscious drive...

- ...you permit the slightest action of a kid...
- Kid!

...kid like Eve to turn you into a hysterical,
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 admit I may have seen better days

But I am 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. Unconditional surrender

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? Isn't that enough?
- I wish it were

Then what would be enough?
Go down on my knees?

I wouldn't want you to do that just to prove something

Tell me what this is all about

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 going to 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 and throwing things
as the curtain comes down

Then it comes up again and everything's fine

But not this time

You know there isn't a playwright in the world...

...who could make me believe
this would happen between two adult people

Goodbye, Margo

Bill... Where are you going?

- To find Eve?
- Well, that suddenly makes the whole thing believable

- Lloyd, what happened?
- Up to here! That's where I've got it, up to here!

Of all the star ridden, presumptuous, hysterical...

- Margo, again
- And again and again!

- Two hours late for the audition, to begin with
- That's on time for Margo

Then a childish, heavy-handed routine that she hasn't
been consulted about Eve being her understudy

- It's just possible she wasn't
- Of course she knew

Karen, let me tell you about Eve.
She has everything. She's a born actress

- Sensitive, understanding, young, exciting, vibrant
- Don't run out of adjectives, dear

She has everything a playwright
first thinks of wanting to write about

- Before his play becomes a vehicle for Miss Channing
- Margo hasn't done badly by it

Margo. Oh, Margo's great.
But she knows it, that's the trouble

She can play all she wants,
and who's to stop her?

Who's to give her that boot in the rear
she so needs and deserves?

- It's going to be a cozy weekend
- What is?

We're driving out to the country tomorrow night.
Just the four of us. Bill, Margo, you and I. Remember?

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 tea-kettle

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,
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. I let it go. Screaming and calling names
is one thing but this could mean...

Why not? Why not?
It would all seem perfectly legitimate

And there were only two people
in the world who would know

And after all, it was no more
than just a perfectly harmless joke...

...which Margo herself would be the first to enjoy

Also, the boot would land
where it would do the most good for all concerned

And no reason why Margo
shouldn't be told about it... in time

So I called Eve and told her to be ready

We drove to the countryside. Bill didn't come at all.
Margo didn't care, she kept saying

Somehow we staggered through Sunday

We drove Margo to the station Monday morning
to catch a train to get to the theatre in time

Suddenly the car slows down and stops.
No gas

Lloyd tried to start it again.
No luck

He went for help
and Margo and I got into a conversation

How fortunate I have an understudy
so ready, so willing and so able to go on

The audience will want its money refunded,
believe me

- Karen, I haven't been very pleasant this weekend
- We've all seemed a little tense lately

Well, 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 sore.
The way you do. We know you too well

So many people know me. I wish I did.
I wish somebody would tell me about me

You're Margo. Just Margo

But what is that?
Besides something spelled out in light bulbs, I mean

Besides something called temperament...

...which seems to consist mostly of swooping about
on a broomstick 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 Bill to want me

But me. Not Margo Channing.
And if I can't tell them apart, how can he?

Why should he? And why should you?

Bill is 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
- Isn't that what they always say?

And about Eve

- I've acted pretty disgracefully toward her, too
- Well...

Let's not fumble for excuses.
Not here and now with my hair down

At best, let's just say I've been oversensitive...

...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 a funny business, a woman's career

The things you drop on the way up the ladder,
so you can move faster

You forget you'll need them again
when you go back to being a woman

And that's one career that all females
have in common, whether we like it or not

Being a woman

Sooner or later we've all got to work at it,
no matter what other careers we've had or wanted

And, in the last analysis, nothing is any good...

...unless I can look up just before dinner
or turn around in bed, and there he is

Without that, I'm not a woman. I'm something with
a French provincial office or a book full of clippings

But I'm not a woman.
Slow curtain. The end

- Margo, I want you to know how sorry I am about this
- About what?

I can't tell you how sorry I am
that you miss this performance

Don't give it another thought.
One of destiny's many pranks

I mean after all, it's not as if you
personally drained the gasoline out of the tank

You were terrific,
you gave a performance, you rang a bell

Few things here and there, it doesn't matter.
You can be proud of yourself, you've got a right to be

- Are you proud of me, Bill?
- I'll admit I was worried. I had my doubts

- You shouldn't have had any doubts
- But you did it

With work and patience, you'll be a fine actress.
If that's what you want to 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 Mephisto. Good luck

- Don't run away, Bill
- From what would I be running?

You're always after the truth onstage.
How about off?

- I'm for it
- Then face it. I have

Since that first night here in the dressing room

When I told you what every young actress should know

When you told me that whatever I became,
it would be because of you

Your 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, despite rumours to the contrary.
And I'm as curious as the next man

Then 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

- May I come in?
- Certainly, Mr DeWitt

How thoughtful of you to call and invite me

And what a happy coincidence that several
other journalists happened to be present

All of us invited this afternoon, to attend
an understudy's performance this evening

I expected to find this room overcrowded,
with a theatre full of people at your feet

- I count myself lucky they didn't throw things
- Your performance was no surprise to me

After the other day I regarded it
as no more than a promise fulfilled

You're more than kind.
But it's still Miss Channing's performance

I'm just a carbon copy you read
when you can't find the original

- You are more than modest
- It's not modesty. I just don't try to kid myself

A revolutionary approach to the theatre

I think the time has come
for you 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 all come into this world
with our little egos equipped with individual horns

If we don't blow them, who will?

One isolated 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 am somebody
- You certainly are

Leave the door open a bit, so we can talk.
After you've changed, if you're not busy elsewhere...

- ...we could have supper
- I'd love to. Or should I pretend I'm busy?

Lets have a minimum of pretending.
I'll want to do a column about you

- I'm not enough for a paragraph
- Perhaps more than one

There's so much I want to know.
I've heard your story in bits and pieces

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

Which theatre was it in San Francisco?
Was it the Shubert?

- That's it, the Shubert
- A fine old theatre, the Shubert

Full of tradition, untouched by the earthquake...
So sorry, fire

By the way, what was your husband's name?

- Eddie
- Eddie what?

I'm so sorry, I'm just about to get in the shower,
I won't be able to hear you

I can wait. Where would you like to go?
Let's make this a special night

- You take charge
- I believe I will

I have never missed a performance.
I can't imagine how this happened

Lloyd said that Max's publicity man
probably sent out the story. Listen to this

'My hat which has these many seasons
become more firmly rooted about my ears...'

'...is lifted to Miss Harrington'

'I am once more available for dancing
in the streets and shouting from the housetops'

And here, 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, shall we say mature actresses...'

'...to continue playing roles requiring a youth
and vigour of which they retain but a dim memory'

- I just can't believe it
- It gets better

'About the understandable reluctance on the part
of our entrenched First Ladies of the stage...'

'...to encourage, shall we say younger actresses'

'And about Miss Harrington's own long
and unsupported struggle for opportunity'

I can't believe Eve said those things

In this rat race,
everyone's guilty until proved innocent

It's one of the differences
between the theatre and civilization

She won't get away with it.
Nor will Addison DeWitt and his poison pen

I will personally stuff that pathetic little lost lamb
down Addison DeWitt's ugly throat

I came as soon as I read that piece of filth

- Bill's here!
- Come here

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 like that, twisting her words,
making her say what he wanted her to say

- Where'd you get all that information?
- Eve

- Eve?
- She's just been to see me, as a matter of fact

- You just missed her
- That was a pity

She wanted to explain about the interview,
she wanted to apologize to someone

- She didn't dare face Margo
- I wonder why

She started to tell me all about it
and she couldn't finish, she cried so

- You know, I've been going over our financial condition
- That's quite a change of subject

Seeing as I'm a playwright
and not an oil well operator...

- Well, I've been thinking
- I'm trying hard to follow you

If instead of waiting until next season
to do Footsteps on the Ceiling...

And if we can put Margo on tour
in Aged in Wood...

...we could put Footsteps on the Ceiling
into production right away

- I'm beginning to catch up
- If we could cast it properly, that is

Maybe get some younger actress for the part?
Someone who'd look the part as well as play it?

Somebody like Eve!

- You've got to admit it would be a novelty
- Now you're quoting Addison. Or Eve

Eve did mention the play. But she'd never ask
to play a part like Cora, she'd never have the nerve

I got the idea myself

For once to write something and have it realized
completely. For once, not to compromise

Lloyd Richards, you are not to consider giving
that contemptible little worm the part of Cora

Now, just a minute

Margo Channing has not been exactly
a compromise all these years

Half the playwrights in the world would give
their shirts for that particular compromise

It strikes me that Eve's disloyalty
and ingratitude must be contagious

All this fuss and hysteria
because an impulsive kid got carried away...

...by a professional manure slinger like DeWitt!
She apologized, didn't she?

On her knees, I have no doubt!
Very touching, very Academy of Dramatic Arts

That bitter cynicism of yours is something
you've acquired since you left Radcliffe

The cynicism you refer to, I acquired the day
I discovered I was different from little boys

Hello... Oh hello, Margo

No, not at all, Karen and I were just chatting

Yes, I'm sure we can and I'm sure we'd love to.
Alright, 11 .45-ish, we'll see you then

Margo and Bill want us to meet them
at the Cub Room tonight...

...after theatre,
for a bottle of wine

Margo in the Cub Room?

- I'm glad Bill's back
- They'd die without each other

Darling, I didn't promise Eve anything

I just said I thought she'd be fine for the part,
but there were some practical difficulties

- Such as?
- You, for one

I told her you were set on Margo playing the part and
I certainly wouldn't make a change without your approval

That's fine. Fine and dandy. I'd enjoy nothing more.
Just refer all of Eve Harrington's future requests to me

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

It's been quite an evening. And I understand that your
understudy Miss Harrington has handed her notice

- Too bad
- I'm broken up about it

It seems you can't just pick up champagne and drink it.
Somebody has to be very witty about a toast

I'm going to propose a toast.
Without wit. With all my heart

To Margo. To my bride-to-be

- Glory Hallelujah!
- Well of all... - Margo!

Come on, drink!

- When? When are you going to do it?
- Tomorrow we meet at City Hall at 10

- And you're going to be on time
- Yes, sir

Mrs Richards?

- Yes?
- For you

Oh, a note, right out in the open like that.
Next time tell your lover to blow smoke rings

This beats all world's records
for running, standing and jumping gall

'Please forgive me for butting into what seems
such a happy occasion...'

'...but it's most important that I speak with you'

'Please...' it's underlined,
'meet me in the Ladies' Room. Eve'

I understand she is now the understudy in there

Look, there's Rasputin.
Encore du champagne

- More champagne, Margo?
- That's what I said

After all, maybe she just wants to apologize

I have no possible interest
in anything she'd have to say

- But what could she say? That's what fascinates me
- Go on. Find out

I am busting to know what goes on
in that feverish little brain waiting in there

Well... all right

Karen! How nice

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

- I've got a lot to say. And none of it's easy
- There can't be very much

- Oh, but there is
- And easy or not, I won't believe a word

Why should you? You know, I've always
considered myself a very clever girl

Smart. Good head on my shoulders.
But then, I had never met Addison DeWitt

I remember once I had a tooth pulled. They gave me
some anaesthetic and it affected me in a strange way

I found myself saying things I wasn't even thinking

As if my mind were someplace outside of my body
and couldn't control what I did or said

- And you felt just like that talking to Addison
- In a way, yes

You find yourself trying to say what you mean,
but somehow the words change

And 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 those things, that they were all Addison?

I don't expect you to believe anything.
Only that the responsibility is mine

- And the disgrace
- Let's not get over-dramatic

You've got a really low opinion of me, haven't you?
Well, 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 they are than she had a right to expect me to be

- Eve, don't cry
- I'm not crying

Well, I think you're painting the picture a little darker
than it is, really. 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
- Yes, you will. Theatre people always do

Nothing is forever in the theatre.
Love or hate, success or failure...

Whatever it is, it flares up and burns hot
and then 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 want to 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
- The part was written for Margo

- It could have been, fifteen 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 it's for me

- Over my dead body
- That won't be necessary

I told Addison how Margo happened
to miss that performance

How I happened to know she'd miss it
in time to call him and notify every paper in town

It's quite a story.
Addison could make quite a thing of it

Just imagine how snide and vicious he could get
and still write nothing but the truth

You'd better sit down. You look a bit wobbly

If I play Cora, Addison will never tell
what I told him, in or out of print

A simple exchange of favours. And 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'd played on her for my benefit?

And you and Lloyd, how long, even in the theatre, before
people forgot what happened and trusted you again?

No, it would be much better for everyone concerned
if I would play Cora. And 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

Karen and I had a nice talk

- Heart to heart? Woman to woman?
- I discussed it very openly

She mentioned, of course,
that Margo expects to play the part?

She never said a word about Margo. Just that
she'd do what she can to see that I get the part

- Just like that?
- Just like that

Do you know, Eve,
sometimes I think you keep things from me

- I don't think that's very funny
- It wasn't meant to be

To say a thing like that now, without any reason,
when I need you more than ever

I hope you mean what you say, Eve.
I intend to hold you to it

We have a great deal in common, it seems to me

- Well?
- She apologized

- With tears?
- With tears

Very classy stuff, lots of technique

You mean to say that after all this time
she's done nothing but apologize?

- What'd you say?
- Not much

- Groom
- Yes, dear?

- May I have a wedding present?
- What would you like? Texas?

I want everyone to shut up about Eve.
Just shut up about Eve, that's all I want

I know everyone's waiting for me to crack that little
gnome over the noggin with a bottle. But not tonight

Even Eve. I forgive Eve

You know why I forgive her?
Because she's left good behind

The four of us, together like this, and Birdie,
Eve did that, and I forgive her

And Bill. Especially Bill. Eve did that, too

Maybe she meant well, after all

- She is a louse
- Never try to outguess Margo

- Groom
- Yes, dear?

- You know what I'm going to be?
- A cowboy?

A married lady. I'm going to look up at six o'clock,
and there he'll be

- Remember, Karen?
- I remember

- You will be there, won't you?
- Often enough to keep the franchise

- And Lloyd, you promise not to be angry with me?
- That depends

- I mean really, deeply angry
- I don't think I could ever be really, deeply angry

- Well, I don't want to play Cora
- What?

It isn't the part. It's a great part.
And a fine play. But it's not for me anymore

- But I wrote her for you
- It means that I've finally got a life to live

I'll make it up to you, I promise.
I'll tour a year with Aged in Wood, whatever you want

Only you do understand, don't you, Lloyd?

- 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. I'd never known
Bill and Lloyd to fight as bitterly and as often...

...and always over some move of Eve's
or the way she said a line

But then I'd never known Lloyd
to meddle as much with Bill's directing

But Bill stuck it out, and Lloyd seemed happy

Hello... Who's calling?

My name wouldn't mean anything

I room across the hall from Miss Harrington,
and she isn't well

She's been crying all night and hysterical,
and she doesn't want a doctor

I'm just worried sick about the opening

Who is it? What's it all about?

Eve's been crying all night and hysterical,
and she doesn't want a doctor

Did Miss Harrington tell you to call Mr Richards?

Hello, this is Lloyd Richards. Where is Eve?
Tell her not to worry. Tell her I'll be right over

Aren't you broadening the duties of a playwright
just a bit?

Rushing off in the middle of the night
like a country doctor?

What would you do if, instead of Eve, the leading man
had called up to say he was hysterical?

- Lloyd, I don't want you to go
- I didn't think you would

It seems to me, Karen, that for some time, now...

...you've been developing a deep unconcern
for the feeling of human beings in general

- I'm a human being, I've got some!
- And for my feelings in particular

For my play, my career,
and now for a frightened, hysterical girl...

...on the eve of her first night in the theatre

Have you forgotten about Eve?
What she is, what she's done?

Old wives' tales, born of envy and jealousy!
And a phobia against truth!

Then tell me this isn't true

That your concern for your play and career is one thing,
and that poor frightened hysterical girl another

And that your concern for her has nothing to do
with either your play or your career

That first, last, and foremost, your reason for going now
is that you want to be with Eve

Three in the morning or high noon,
play or no play, wife or no wife

Isn't it true, Lloyd?
I have no talent to offer outside of loving you

How can I compete?

- Surprise!
- Addison!

What a day, what a heavenly day!

- Opening Night. D-day
- Just like it

And tomorrow morning you will have won
your beachhead on the shores of immortality

Stop rehearsing your review

Isn't it strange, Addison?
I thought I'd be panic-stricken...

...want to run away or something.
Instead, I cannot 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 to me everything I ever wanted

The end of an old road
and 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 4

Plenty of time for a nice long nap,
we rehearsed most of last night

- You could sleep, too, couldn't you?
- Why not?

The mark of a true killer.
Sleep tight, rest easy and come out fighting

Why'd you call me a killer?

Did I say killer? I meant champion,
get my boxing terms mixed

Addison, when I told you this would be
a night to remember, I didn't just mean the theatre

- What then?
- 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 about Lloyd and his loves
but I do know you

I'm in love with Lloyd!

Lloyd Richards is commercially
the most successful playwright in America...

- You have no right to say such things
- ...and artistically, the most promising

- Eve dear, this is Addison
- 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 be great

You're the only one I've told,
the only one who knows except for Lloyd and me

- And Karen
- She doesn't know

- I see. And when was this unholy alliance joined?
- Last night

Was the setting properly romantic?
The lights on dimmers, gypsy violins off stage?

The setting wasn't romantic, but Lloyd was

He woke me up at three in the morning,
banging on my door

He told me he couldn't sleep,
he'd left Karen...

...he couldn't go on with the play
or anything else until I promised to marry him

We sat and talked until light.
He never went home

- You sat and talked until light
- We sat and talked, Addison

- I want a run-of-the-play contract
- There never was, there'll never be another like you

Well, say something... anything!
Congratulations, good work, Eve!

- What do you take me for?
- I don't know that I take you for anything

It is possible, even conceivable
that you've confused me...

...with that gang of backward children
you've been playing tricks on

That you have the same contempt for me
that you have for them

I'm sure you mean something by that, Addison,
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. You still do

Addison, I still don't know what you're getting at.
Right now I need to take my nap

- It's important that I...
- It's important right now that we talk

- Killer to killer
- Champion to champion

Not with me, you're no champion.
You're stepping way up in class

Addison, will you please say
what you have to say plainly and distinctly...

- ...and then get out so I can take my nap
- You know as well as I, what I am about 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 to tear the ivy from the walls of Yale

I have come to tell you 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? That sounds medieval

- That sounds like something out of an old melodrama
- So does the history of the world

I had hoped that somehow you would have known,
have taken it for granted that you and I...

Taken it for granted?
That you and I...

Remember as long as you live,
never to laugh at me

At anything or anyone else,
but never at me

- Get out!
- Don't get up. Stay where you are

Something told you to do as I say, didn't it?
That instinct is worth millions

You can't buy it, cherish it, Eve. When that alarm
goes off, you go to your battle stations

Your name is not Eve Harrington.
It is Gertrude Slescynski

- What of it?
- It is true that your parents were poor

They still are. And they would like to know
how you are and where

- They haven't heard from you for three years
- What of it?

It is also true that you worked in a brewery. But life in
the brewery was apparently not as dull as you pictured it

As a matter of fact, it got less and less dull until your
boss's wife had your boss followed by detectives

She never proved a thing, not a thing!

But the money you got to get out of town
brought you straight to New York, didn't it?

- That $500 brought you straight to New York, didn't it?
- 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.
and you've never been married

That was not only a lie, but an insult to dead heroes
and to 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 paid her back by trying to take Bill away
- That's not true

I was there, I heard you and saw you
through the dressing room door

You used my name and my column to blackmail
Karen into getting you the part of Cora

- And you lied to me about it
- No! No! No!

I had lunch with Karen not three hours ago

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, so am I

We have that in common

Also a contempt for humanity, an inability to love
or be loved, insatiable ambition and talent

We deserve each other

Are you listening to me?

Then say so

Yes, Addison

You realise
how completely you belong to me?

Yes, Addison

Take your nap now. And good luck for tonight

I won't play tonight. I couldn't. Not possibly

You'll give the performance of your life.
It will be a night to remember

Honoured members of the Sarah Siddons Society,
distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

What is there for me to say? For me to thank you
as equals would be presumptuous

I am an apprentice in the theatre
and I have much to learn from you all

I can say only that I am proud and happy

And that I regard this great honour 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, 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

Thank you

- Congratulations
- Thank you, Karen

- My dear
- Thank you

No, you must not think
that I am leaving you...

...for my heart is here in the theatre

Nice speech, Eve.
I wouldn't worry too much about your heart

You can always put that award
where your heart ought to be

- Let's go
- I don't think I'm going to the party

- Why not?
- Because I don't want to

Max has gone to a great deal of trouble,
it's going to be an elaborate party, and it's for you

No, it's not. It's for this

- Same thing, isn't it?
- Exactly

- Here. Take it to the party instead of me
- Now you're being childish

- I'm tired. I want to go home
- Very well. I'll drop you off

Oh ghost moth, hear me, hear me

Oh pale moth shield me, shield me

I hear you beating, beating

I feel you in me, in me

Lose yourself
Into the lights

Palest wings
Burning bright

Oh ghost moth, hear me, hear me

Oh pale moth shield me, shield me

Lose yourself
Into the lights

Palest wings
Wave goodbye

- Who are you?
- Miss Harrington...

- What are you doing here?
- I guess I fell asleep

Please don't have me arrested, please!
I didn't steal anything. You can search me!

- Have we met before?
- At the stage door

I love watching you enter and leave the theatre

- What do you do between the time I go in and out?
- I see the play

- You've seen every performance?
- Uh huh

How did you get in here?

I hid outside in the hall till the maid came
to turn down your bed

She must've forgot something
and when she went to get it, she left the door open

I sneaked in and hid till she finished.
I looked around and then I guess, I fell asleep

You were just looking around...

- That is all
- What for?

- You probably won't believe me
- Probably not

- It was for my report
- What report?

About how you live

What kind of clothes you wear, what kind
of books you have, perfume... things like that

You know the Eve Harrington clubs?
They've got them in most of the girls' high schools

- I've heard of them
- Ours was the first

Erasmus Hall. I'm the president

- So you're going to Hollywood?
- I might

- That spilled drink is going to ruin your carpet
- The maid'll fix it in the morning

- I'll just pick up the glass
- Don't bother

- How'd you get all the way up here from Brooklyn?
- Subway

- 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, there. Who are you?
- Mr DeWitt...

Miss Harrington's just resting.
She asked me to see who it is

It seems she left her award in the taxi cab.
Will you give it to her?

- How did you know my name?
- It's a very famous name, Mr DeWitt

And what is your name?

- Phoebe
- Phoebe?

- I call myself Phoebe
- Why not?

Tell me, Phoebe, do you want some day
to have an award like that of your own?

More than anything else in the world

Then you must ask Miss Harrington how to get one.
Miss Harrington knows all about it

- Who was it?
- Just a taxi driver, Miss Harrington

You left the award in his cab
and he brought it back

- Put it on the dresser, will you?
- Sure, Miss Harrington