The Three Faces of Eve

Joanne Woodward was wonderful in this movie. She really showed the confusion and hardship surrounding multiple personality disorder. Years later, however, I found a book called, "I'm Eve". It was the autobiography of Chris Sizemore, the person the movie is based on. If you would like the continuation of this story, and there is a lot more, then this book is a must read.

Joanne Woodward is SO good in this (she won the academy award for best actress). Her portrayals of Eve White (dowdy and dreary), Eve Black (sensual and wild) and the eventual Jane (pretty close to what you'd call normal) were nothing short of incredible due to the diversity of the personalities and the fact that she was able to achieve such believability. Got to see this one.

For dramatic effect movies about mental illness always have the psychiatrist coming up with a miracle cure of the patient. You saw that in Spellbound with Gregory Peck and in The Snake Pit with Olivia DeHavilland. It's not that easy, but it does make for good cinema. To give credit where it is do, The Three Faces of Eve is about a real case of multiple personality disorder and Alistair Cooke's narration does give it a proper time frame, the cure is a matter of years here.

In only her third feature film Joanne Woodward became the Best Actress for 1957, ironically beating out Elizabeth Taylor who was descending into madness in Raintree County instead of being cured. I read somewhere that the Southern born Ms. Woodward remarked ironically that it took years of training for her to lose her southern accent and then she has to find it all over again to win her Oscar. I guess the Academy voters that year were as impressed as I was how she was able to flip into three different characters in many scenes. She's drab homemaker Eve White, a Tennessee Williams sexpot as Eve Black, and as Jane who's trying to leave both behind.

As good as Woodward is, my favorite scene in The Three Faces of Eve is when psychiatrist Lee J. Cobb tries to explain to Woodward's working class husband David Wayne about multiple personality disorder. The patient looks on Cobb's face and the blank expression on Wayne's face say more than ten pages of dialog. Another performance to look for is that of future TV physician Ben Casey, Vincent Edwards as a soldier trying to pick up Woodward in her sex kitten self.

Nunnally Johnson gets some real good performances out of his cast and a once in a lifetime role for Joanne Woodward.

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!