The Three Faces Of Eve

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C     Extras: C+     Film: B-

 

 

Joanne Woodward is a very respected actress, who has been celebrated as recently as James Ivory’s Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990), but she does not work as often as she used to.  One of the roles that has stood out for decades has been her famed performance in producer/writer/director Nunnally Johnson’s The Three Faces Of Eve, roughly based on a book two real life doctors (Corbett H. Thigpen & Harvey M. Cleckley) wrote.  Considering the film is from 1957 and nearly a half-century old, Woodward’s performance endures quite well.  The film is sometimes another story.

 

Though the circumstances that are revealed in her character becoming that way have weight, a big problem is that her husband (the great David Wayne) is such a bastard that the film lets him off the hook as if it was fine for him to be so mean to her just because she is sick.  He is like this because he “just does not understand” the situation, which might be feasible when he is ignorant once, but that collapses when his selfishness and hatefulness happens over and over again.  Old Hollywood films pass this dysfunctional behavior off as “something that happens” and it is simply inexcusable and any film that lets it slide this much is perpetuating his illness at the expense of us all; especially problematic in a film about multiple personality.  “That’s reality man” does not cut it either.

 

Part of the problem is that the film still wants to be somewhat of a melodrama and “women’s film” at a time when TV soap operas had not overtaken their radio drama equivalents and Hollywood wanted to keep it that way.  This contradicts the sound medical and dramatic segments of the film that dominate enough to keep it as good as it is.  Woodward is just so compelling, though feminist critics may argue some virgin/whore complex on the part of Nunnally for the way two of the characters split, and they would be right when you throw in the problem with Wayne’s husband character in the first place.  Add the problems with the odd Hollywood kind of ending and it is amazing the film holds up as it does.  It still needs some analysis of its own, having as many personalities as Eve herself.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 x 1 image was originally shot in CinemaScope by Stanley Cortez, A.S.C., on black and white film.  The transfer is good enough for this DVD, but not the best we have seen for a monochrome scope film to date.  Maybe this is a professional analog NTSC transfer, but it should be said that the CinemaScope system does tend to distort the image a bit to begin with.  Though not filled with any fancy form, it is a very competent job and use of scope, with a few straightforward flashback sequences.  The Dolby Digital is available in volume problematic 2.0 Stereo and original monophonic sound.  In the Stereo mix, the music is often louder than the dialogue, which is not good.  You should be careful about playing that version too loudly, even if you have something like Pro Logic II.  Regular Pro Logic did not help the situation either.  Extras include Fox Movietone footage of Woodward getting The Oscar for Best Actress, trailers for this and a few other DVDs form their classic library and an audio commentary by Aubrey Solomon that is informative and fact filled.  It just misses some points.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo