Who's worse: Eve Harrington or Veda Pierce?
Who do you find more despicable, Eve or Veda (from Mildred Pierce)?
Eve Harrington 0
Veda Pierce 1
"Self-pity is our worst enemy." - Helen Keller
Veda by a long shot, since she commits murder while Eve is just a sociopathic backstabber who wants mass adulation more than she needs money. Mildred Pierce spoiled Veda to the point where her daughter became a selfish, avaricious psychopath who finally gets her comeuppance and just punishment at the end. Eve Harrington has at least as strong a sense of entitlement as Veda Pierce and gets all the fame and glory at Margo's expense. Sure Eve has talent as an actress, but she is a fraud who makes life miserable for everyone who made her success possible, particularly the gullible Karen Richards. Eve is ruthless, but (unlike Veda) has a cunning intelligence with common sense, and would never jeopardize her career by reacting with violence as Veda does. Veda continually hurts her long-suffering mother Mildred who is a glutton for punishment, then kills her step-father because he used her and refused to make an honest woman of her. I can't stand the Eve Harrington character (she grates on my nerves) and find Veda more fascinating, but cold-blooded murder is a crime, while harboring hardboiled ambition is not.
By the way, Bette Davis was great as Margo Channing (her finest performance), Anne Baxter was excellent as Eve Harrington, and Joan Crawford was simply superb as Mildred Pierce (1945). Crawford deservedly won that Oscar in 1946. It's too bad that Baxter, Davis, and Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard) canceled each other out and lost to the far less worthy Judy Holiday in 1951. All three of those legendary performances have stood the test of time, but, if it were up to me, since Baxter already had an Oscar for BSA in The Razor's Edge (1946), it would have been a tie between Davis and Swanson for the BA prize.
Few film buffs remember Holiday in Born Yesterday, and her leading men, Broderick Crawford (Best Actor 1949) and William Holden, who later won for Stalag 17 (1953), made her look good. Holden was even better opposite Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, but he was also robbed that year, losing to the excellent Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac. I don't mind that Ferrer won, since he was great in so many other films, and Holden would later be awarded the prize anyway. BUT: the Oscars suck. Half of the time, they choose the least deserving over the genuine talent because of political correctness, payback, or some kind of social sensitivity. Then when they do choose the most talented, as say for instance, Vanessa Redgrave in Julia (1977), the winner gets up on stage to make a total ass of themselves with a long-winded speech usually loaded with political mumbo-jumbo (or worse).
It would have been wonderful if Joseph L. Mankiewicz had made a sequel soon after AAE to show how Eve was given her just desserts by the scheming Phoebe, the babe who slips into her suite after the Sarah Siddons Awards dinner. The beautiful girl who portrayed Phoebe never landed another good part and died rather young after a series of small roles in t.v. and B-movies. A film about the trials of Eve Harrington, set in Hollywood, might have been her chance at stardom.