"The Three Faces of Eve" is just the film for students of psychiatry. This was a landmark film in its own time, and still holds up after so many years. There is much to like, and I can't think of one thing I didn't like about it.
Filmed in black and white, as usual the look always seems to impart a certain gravity to the story. It does so here; this is not really a happy tale, as things develop.
Eve White (Joanne Woodward) has agreed to see a psychiatrist along with her husband Ralph (David Wayne – probably his most significant film role). She has been having problems with headaches and some strange events have occurred, at least one of which is quite alarming. The psychiatrist is of course befuddled with her testimony. As the story continues, she certainly is treated for her condition – evincing at first two and then three distinct personas – but she really is taxing contemporary knowledge of her kind of affliction.
Joanne Woodward won the Best Actress award from the Academy in 1957. She was a fresh face at that time, yet there is no doubt she should have at least been nominated. She really convinces us that she is each one of the three people she could become. It is incredible how she can change on a dime from one "face" to another, and in fact she can even be induced to do so.
Lee J. Cobb (as Dr. Luther) really supports this film and the character(s) of Eve, and it is seems to me a big oversight by the Academy that he wasn't nominated for an award; two of the nominees for Best Supporting Actor (Russ Tamblyn and Arthur Kennedy) had appeared in "Peyton Place". The sheer amount of dialogue Cobb delivers and the manner in which he essentially manipulates Eve to open up is really on the mark. It should also be mentioned this was probably Nunally Johnson's best directorial effort. In an interview Johnson relates that he really wanted Orson Welles to play the doctor's role (http://www.archive.org).
There is more to the story of the real person's life upon who this was based (Chris Sizemore) then we are able to cover in this movie. The above mentioned interview sheds some light on that. But this story stands on its own, in a big way.
Four stars.
Filmed in black and white, as usual the look always seems to impart a certain gravity to the story. It does so here; this is not really a happy tale, as things develop.
Eve White (Joanne Woodward) has agreed to see a psychiatrist along with her husband Ralph (David Wayne – probably his most significant film role). She has been having problems with headaches and some strange events have occurred, at least one of which is quite alarming. The psychiatrist is of course befuddled with her testimony. As the story continues, she certainly is treated for her condition – evincing at first two and then three distinct personas – but she really is taxing contemporary knowledge of her kind of affliction.
Joanne Woodward won the Best Actress award from the Academy in 1957. She was a fresh face at that time, yet there is no doubt she should have at least been nominated. She really convinces us that she is each one of the three people she could become. It is incredible how she can change on a dime from one "face" to another, and in fact she can even be induced to do so.
Lee J. Cobb (as Dr. Luther) really supports this film and the character(s) of Eve, and it is seems to me a big oversight by the Academy that he wasn't nominated for an award; two of the nominees for Best Supporting Actor (Russ Tamblyn and Arthur Kennedy) had appeared in "Peyton Place". The sheer amount of dialogue Cobb delivers and the manner in which he essentially manipulates Eve to open up is really on the mark. It should also be mentioned this was probably Nunally Johnson's best directorial effort. In an interview Johnson relates that he really wanted Orson Welles to play the doctor's role (http://www.archive.org).
There is more to the story of the real person's life upon who this was based (Chris Sizemore) then we are able to cover in this movie. The above mentioned interview sheds some light on that. But this story stands on its own, in a big way.
Four stars.