"Phoebe," she calls herself, but in the script she's just "girl." It's the last scene of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's (Stuyvesant '24) All about Eve. "Phoebe" has sneaked into Eve Harrington's hotel room and has pretended to fall asleep. Eve accosts her and is about to call the police when the intruderess proclaims herself a fan of the actress. Here's their conversation:
"GIRL You know the Eve Harrington clubs – that they've got in most of the girls' high schools?
EVE I've heard of them.
GIRL Ours was one of the first. Erasmus Hall. I'm the president.
EVE Erasmus Hall. That's in Brooklyn, isn't it?
GIRL Lots of actresses come from Brooklyn. Barbara Stanwyck, Susan Hayward – of course, they're just movie stars."
Phoebe might also have mentioned that both Barbara Stanwyck (Ruby Stevens) and Susan Hayward (Edythe Marrener) were not only from Brooklyn, but also from Erasmus Hall High School. Why doesn't she say so? Or is being a native of Brooklyn disability enough?
Phoebe might have added to her list and mentioned that Mae West was also an alumna of the same high school. Cheers to Erasmus Hall, mother of actresses — even though Erasmus's Barbra Streisand '59 was still in braces and still in P. S. something or other when All about Eve was being exhibited at the Leader Theater on Coney Island Avenue.
Supposed Erasmian "Phoebe" was played by the young Barbara Bates, who was highly credible as an upwardly mobile Brooklynite. Her small part includes an iconic moment when, in the film's last scene, she appears in full narcissistic glory, preening in front of a triptych of mirrors as she tries on Eve's clothes. She is reflected in multiple, infinitely regressing fragments. Bates, a native of Denver, Colorado, did not, alas, live up to her early promise, but soon after the completion of this film fell into bouts of insanity that came to an end only when she took her own life in 1959.
But why Erasmus? Because its graduates had achieved a reputation for fierce ambition? Perhaps, but also because Erasmus (as Mankiewicz would well have known) was even more provincial — as only the outer boroughs of New York can be provincial — than Eve Harrington's childhood Wisconsin. "Phoebe" is another Eve and equally naive and countrified. She's a doppelganger on deck, a secret sharer in ovo, a Mr Hyde in the making; she's also defensive, megalomaniacal, unsophisticated, slightly loony, and ruthless. And so it was an excellent decision to root her in EHHS, where at least 20% of the students, if I remember correctly, had almost exactly the same traits of character.
Leave a Reply