In the hotel confrontation between Eve and Addison, Addison says that Karen knows that Lloyd plans on leaving her to marry Eve.
Yet, that little detail is left hanging. We don't see or hear any more about it or Karen's reaction.
In the end, Karen and Lloyd seem as close as ever. Karen seemed devoted to Lloyd. I would think she would be hurt and angry at his possible betrayal of her.
Any thoughts?
Hi, Gubb!
In that scene, I think Eve is counting chickens before they're hatched. And we know that she's not at all shy about stretching the truth, as she does when telling Addison that Lloyd "woke me up at three o'clock in the morning, banging on my door. He couldn't sleep, he said. He'd left Karen. Couldn't go on with the play or anything else until I promised to marry him."
But we know from the prior scene that Eve had dragged Lloyd out of bed by having her rooming house friend call him to say she "isn't well."
All Addison says about Karen in New Haven is that "She knows enough not to be here," which we saw for ourselves in that prior scene: "It seemed to me I had known always that it would happen. And here it was. I felt helpless. That helplessness you feel when you have no talent to offer, outside of loving your husband. How could I compete? Everything Lloyd loved about me, he'd gotten used to long ago."
Incidentally, that scene continues in the shooting script with dialogue that isn't included in the film, wherein Karen harangues Lloyd about his attraction to Eve as he wordlessly dresses to go to her and walks out.
Earlier in the film, we'd seen how, one by one, Birdie, Margo, Bill and Karen had wised up to the kind of person Eve was, and how the rift between Margo and Bill was eventually patched up. We can simply assume that, somewhere between the play's opening and the award night, the scales had finally fallen from Lloyd's eyes, and that he and Karen reconciled, so there's really no need for the film to bog down its momentum by covering similar ground again.
The little remark Lloyd makes to Karen as he gives his award to her - "For services rendered beyond the whatever-it-is of duty" - hints adequately at the rough ground they've traveled and managed to put behind them.
Hey, Doghouse!
Thanks for your input. I knew Eve was a big liar, and you couldn't believe anything she said.
I just wanted to hear an opinion on why that rather serious point (Lloyd leaving Karen for Eve) wasn't expounded on.
As you pointed out, at that point in the story everyone was "on to" Eve, so, it's left to the viewer's imagination that Karen and Lloyd ironed things out. That's what I figured.
Thanks again. 😁
As you pointed out, at that point in the story everyone was "on to" Eve, so, it's left to the viewer's imagination that Karen and Lloyd ironed things out.
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That's how they did it/do it in the better scripts out there....
And isn't one of the great scenes in movie history the one where Addison corners Eve and lays down the law. I can only paraphrase the dialogue: " Could it be? Could it be that you have mistaken me for one of those unintelligent children you have deceived?"
That's only a guess.
Doghouse - since Eve "belonged" to Addison after their confrontation, she'd have broken it off with Lloyd - probably telling him some nonsense about how she couldn't come btw him & such a splendid wife and friend. The script doesn't confirm that Lloyd ever realized what Eve was, but seeing her with Addison may have given him a clue.
shareI was under the impression that Addison simply knew the real events of the night Lloyd went to Eve's apartment inquiring as to her welfare the night before the play. Although Lloyd may have had a little infatuation for Eve, for all the reasons Karen had mentioned, I don't think he would have ever cheated on or left Karen. All that Eve said on the subject of Lloyd was a lie and a twisted reality she was still coniving to accomplish.
shareLate reply, but:
Addison knows pretty much everything: he would have begun digging immediately after his dressing room conversation with Eve, when he asks about the Shubert Theater in San Francisco. He actually gives Eve a subtle warning in the Cub Room scene, when he lightly comments: "Sometimes I think you keep things from me," and finishing by warning her that he hopes she means it when she says she depends on him, because he intends to hold her to it. In the hotel scene he fires at Eve that he had a meeting with Karen just (an hour ago?), and that "like all women, she revealed more than she learned." I would say that Addison never goes into a battle unarmed.
He knows what a potent, double-edged sword his article on Eve is too, as he intones, giving Karen the newspaper someone else was reading: "Here. Read my article. The minutes will fly like hours." Oblivious to the subtle (oh, that Addison!) warning, Karen smiles brightly as she accepts the bomb about to go off and reunite Margo and Bill.