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In this film adaptation, the proscenium arches of the London and New York stage versions seem to be looming just out of camera range. Mankiewicz is a film maker who has always taken a bemused interest in the folk ways of the theater. He wrote and directed All About Eve, a film to which he pays sly homage here, and he has chosen to accentuate the script's staginess instead of trying to break out of it.
The movie begins with shots of various set designs and ends with a curtain descending briskly on a miniature stage.
Even his deliberate flaunting does not solve the problem. It is like a crippled man bedecking his wheelchair with flowers in hopes that no one will notice his paralysis.
Of late, Olivier's movie activity has been confined to playing a variety of cameos in top-heavy histories like Nicholas and Alexandra. It is good to see him again in a role of size, if not of substance, and he makes wonderful sport of it. His face is a study in split-second metamorphoses. He does so much with it so fast that sometimes, in a closeup, he gives the impression of a multiple exposure. Caine seems not in the least daunted by acting with a legend incarnate. To say that he matches Olivier in every way is to pay him the highest of compliments.