The Three Faces of Eve

Joanne Woodward is simply amazing as a woman who suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. She is very believable, and is fantastic in all three personalities, Eve White/Eve Black/Jane. Lee J Cobb is also great as the doctor who treats her. In my opinion one of the greatest "Best Actress Academy Award" winning performances that I have watched. She deserves all the critical acclaim and awards that she won. 10 out of 10.

I read Paul Newman's biography this summer. And early in the book, they mentioned the 3 faces of Eve and the Oscar Mrs Woodward won for her portray of the personality troubled character. From that moment, I wanted to see the movie. I have watched it lately and I must admit this is one of the best movie I have seen so far. She was capable to play three different characters and at the same time understand the subtlety of this disease (as I happen to study mental diseases). The ensemble has a good rhythm. The other characters are good and take just the necessary room without trying to impose. I enjoyed the tension that rises as we approach the end of the movie. There is no bloodshed yet it is quite terrifying. I recommend this feature to any movie lover.

I suppose the one thing Eve White could never be accused of, in the 1957 movie "The Three Faces of Eve," is not having enough of a personality! In fact--to the consternation of her dullard Georgian husband, and the amazement of shrink Lee J. Cobb--she's got three distinct personalities that tend to emerge quite unexpectedly. The first is Eve White herself, a mousy dishrag of a housewife; then there's "Eve Black," an extroverted, hard-drinking party girl; and finally "Jane," a nice, well-spoken young woman. As portrayed by Joanne Woodward in her Oscar-winning role, this mixed-up gal becomes a very believable and sympathetic figure. Woodward is actually pretty amazing here, and it is quite remarkable how she is able to switch on a dime from one personality to another, using all the actor's tricks of mannerisms, voice inflections, accents and so on. Cobb is also excellent, as usual, as the soft-spoken, patient doctor who tries for years to help her, and David Wayne is also fine as Eve's husband, who, in one fascinating scene, seems to cheat on his wife WITH HIS OWN WIFE! The psychological explanation of why Eve has become what she is may strike some as too pat, but we shouldn't forget that this is all based on a real-life case history. However, as Danny Peary reminds us in his fun book "Alternate Oscars," the real-life Eve had not been cured at the time this film was made, but rather required 17 years' worth of additional therapy, during which time a full 22 personalities came forth! But I guess that would have made for a very depressing 10-hour movie! And I wholeheartedly agree with Peary that Woodward deserved an Oscar for her work here. Heck, under the circumstances, they should've given her three!

Joanne Woodward lights up the screen in triple roles in this tale of multiple-personality disorder. Her initial, primary role is that of Eve White, a seemingly ordinary and meek Southern woman married to a man named Ralph (David Wayne). Well into adulthood, her second personality, a flirty, vampish, life-of-the-party pre-marriage version of herself, starts posing serious problems, and she is sent to therapy. An eminent psychiatrist (Lee J. Cobb) uses hypnosis to try to get through to her, and find the life event that triggered the emergence of Eve No. 2 (although none seems to exist). In time, a third personality emerges, a soft-spoken but mature and intelligent woman named Jane.

Although extremely well shot in CinemaScope by Stanley Cortez, this relatively brief film (92 minutes long) does not try to dazzle the viewer with visual dynamics, hinging almost entirely on Woodwards' impressive ability to delineate these three distinct characters. She certainly deserved that Best Actress Oscar win; "The Three Faces of Eve" offers her plenty of opportunity to just emote for everything that she's worth. Offering strong support are Wayne, as the husband who finds that he just can't stand by her (and, in one memorable scene, finds himself attracted to the Eve Black personality), and Cobb as the determined doctor interested in Eves' welfare. In smaller roles, you'll see familiar actors and actresses such as Nancy Kulp ('The Beverly Hillbillies'), Douglas Spencer ("The Thing from Another World"), Vince Edwards ('Ben Casey'), and Ken Scott ("Stopover Tokyo"). The film is narrated by Alistair Cooke of 'Masterpiece Theatre' fame.

This compelling material is given fairly straightforward treatment by screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, in one of his eight directing credits. It doesn't get too bogged down in "psycho-babble", although there is some amusement in the way that Cobb has his work cut out for him trying to use laymen's terms with the not-terribly-bright, hot-tempered Wayne.

While the film ends rather abruptly, it's careful to point out to us that the journey to self-discovery for Eve was a couple of years in the making. While the ending is kind of typical Hollywood stuff, Woodward still sells all of it so beautifully.

Inspired by the real-life case of South Carolina woman Christine Costner Sizemore, who ultimately manifested over *20* different personalities over the course of her lifetime.

Eight out of 10.

Wow! Woodward is amazing in this film as Eve White, Eve Black and Jane. She plays them all to perfection. It has to be hard to switch and do all these different characters right after one another but she did it wonderfully. It's no surprise she won the oscar for best actress. Great film, if you havent seen this one yet do ASAP!