The Three Faces of Eve "Mrs. Eve White"- The Timid Housewife 1957’s “The Three Faces of Eve” tells the story of a woman suffering from Multiple Personalities disorder. Played by Joanne Woodward, Eve White is an extremely meek, quiet, modest housewife and mother from Georgia in 1950. The film’s story is actually a depiction of a very true story of a woman named Christine Costner Sizemore who’s doctors, Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, wrote book about her life and subsequently sold the rights to her life story to 20th Century Fox. Mrs. Cleckley successfully sued for the rights. After her husband Ralph, played by David Wayne, is shocked and furious over discovering a $200 bill for dancing dresses his wife doesn’t remember buying, he takes her to Personality Psychologist Dr. Curtis Luther, played by Lee J. Cobb. The rest of the film consists of Luther meeting the three faces of Eve and of Eve trying to heal and cope with it all. First there’s Eve White, the “main” personality” who is meek, gentle, kind, quiet, and almost mournful. She doesn’t know anything about her other personalities until Dr. Luther tells her of their existence. "Ms. Eve Black- The Self-Center Man-Chaser Up the this point, she only knew that she would get an intense headache and then blackout and wake up sometimes somewhere else and in different clothes. The second personality calls herself Eve Black. She is seductive, fast-talking, hotheaded personality that flirts with every man she sees and runs Eve White’s body ragged dancing all night long. Jane is the third personality, and arrives onto the scene in the film’s last 40 minutes or so. This is the personality that seems to be the most normal: she’s kind, intelligent, secure, caring, confident, and poised. Eve’s husband Ralph is suspicious of her mental illness even after meeting Eve Black and accuses Eve of just trying to make up an excuse to cheat on him. Eve White tries to insist that it’s totally out of her control and that she can’t come back home from the hospital until she’s healed. After getting seduced and swindled by Eve Black, Ralph divorces Eve. "Jane"- The Pleasant and Preferred Personality When Jane arrives in the film, the other two personalities start to feel tired and like they’re going to “lose” to Jane. Eve White is actually thankful for this and actually hopes that Jane wins because she knows that she’s not capable of being the mother her little girl deserves. Eve Black on the other hand, sheds her first tears, to the shock of Dr. Luther, and says that she doesn’t feel as happy as she used to. She asks the Dr. if he likes her most and he answers, staying true to his character as a gentleman and keeping to his ethical protocol as a doctor, saying, “I can’t imagine liking anyone more.” This seems to give Eve Black a certain peace and she asks him if he remembers that red dress she wore the first time he met her and when he says yes, she says that she wants him to keep it for him to remember him by if “anything happens”. When I started watching this film, I never would have guessed that I would have grown to love the personality that, in the beginning of the movie, tried to strangle little Bonnie with the strings of window blinds, but this scene is so touching, and the three personalities all becoming so three dimensional, I can’t help but appreciate them all as separate characters entirely. Near the end of the film, the doctor is frustrated that he can’t seem to get any of the personalities to remember anything from when they were six years old. He knows that something traumatic had to have happened because he discovered as much through Eve White via hypnosis. However, it is Jane who, after the other two personalities unofficially said goodbye, remembers when she was six years old and when her mother called her in from playing outside so that she could kiss the corpse of her grandmother at the wake taking place in her home so that she “wouldn’t miss her so much”. This, it is revealed, was the trigger that caused Eve Black to come into full existence. After this revelation, Dr. Luther immediately asks to speak to Mrs. White and Ms. Black, but Jane says with slow, building exuberance, “They-They aren’t here anymore.” Healed forever of her personalities and with her full life’s memory restored, Jane rides off into the sunset with her new fiancé and Bonnie to live happily ever after. Joanne Woodward earned every MILLIGRAM of that Oscar! Her performance brought to life three different characters, sometimes, all in one scene! Her transitions so realistic, her portrayals so natural looking, she delivered a performance that I think stands as possibly on of the most worthy Oscar winning performances of all time. Lizzie "Lizzie"- The Film and The Evil Personality In 1957, released a month before “The Three Faces of Eve”- “Lizzie”, a low budget film about a mousy young woman living with her aunt who suffers from multiple personalities, was made. The film, based on the novel “The Bird's Nest” by Shirley Jackson, begins by introducing the viewer to Elizabeth via a conversation two of her coworkers are having about her. Right after Ruth, Elizabeth’s only friend at the museum where she works, defends her to another woman who complains of Elizabeth’s constant state of “illness”, Elizabeth enters the film. She seems to be in a constant state of anxiety and is always suffering from headaches and various fatigue related ailments. She discovers a letter in her office, apparently one of many like it, that is scrawled in big letters threatening her life and signed “Lizzie”. Elizabeth’s lives with her Aunt Morgan played by Joan Blondell: a heavy drinker with an obvious past and a nonviolent indifference to Elizabeth. Joan plays the part beautifully, although not all harsh words and booze, her performance as Aunt Morgan does depart from the usual upbeat and witty roles she was famous for. After an extremely out of character outburst from Elizabeth toward aunt Morgan, she runs to her room and “Lizzie” appears. Staring at herself in the mirror, she evaluates her physique and quickly draws on some eyebrows and eyeliner, smears on some lipstick, and ties up her hair in a messy bundle on the top of her head- essentially becoming a new character. Their neighbor Walter, played by the director Hugo Haas, is a sincere, foreign-born, kind man who, after Morgan starts to notice strange behavior from Elizabeth, refers her to his friend Dr. Neal Wright. Lizzie The Evil, irresponsible Personality Elizabeth The "Main" Personality. Also Anxious and Depressed Beth The Preferred and Healthy Personality "Beth"- "Better than the Original" and The Traumatic Triggers Shortly after meeting Elizabeth and getting her to list off her usual complains of amnesia and headaches, he puts her under hypnosis. While responding to basic questions in an hypnotic state, her other personality Lizzie reveals herself to him and her plans to take over Elizabeth’s body and kill her. He decides not to tell her about her split personality at first, but when he finds a third personality named Beth, who is kindhearted and of a sound mind, he tells Elizabeth about her illness. Her Aunt Morgan, who in the beginning said she didn’t believe in psychiatry, is skeptical at first and irritated by the truth later on. However, this doesn’t last too long and she begins to really worry about her niece. Near the end of the film, it’s revealed that her personalities came into existence after two very traumatic events. Back when Elizabeth was a young teenager living with a much more together looking Aunt Morgan, her mother, played by Dorothy Arnold, came stumbling into the house drunk and with a sleazy looking man. Furious and heartbroken that her mother forgot her birthday yet again, she hits her mother several times in the chest and pushes her onto a chair, supposedly killing her. Her mother dies later, but only because her heart was bad and she ignored doctor’s orders not to drink. Elizabeth lived her life thinking she was responsible. If that wasn’t bad enough, the same night her mother dies, the man her mother came home with rapes her. Upon this revelation, Morgan is devastated that it happened and that she never knew. Elizabeth runs up to her room again, this time to have a three-way argument with herself in her three-part vanity mirror. The scenes that follow are actually some of the more poorly aged scenes in the movie, with cheesy close-ups and over the top effects and expressions. Overcome with desperation, Elizabeth smashes the mirror and the doctor runs up to find her exhausted on the floor. Thankfully, Elizabeth managed to destroy Lizzie forever and basically becomes Beth. The movie then abruptly ends. So How Do they Compare?
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