The Three Faces of Eve
Director: Nunnally Johnson. Cast: Joanne Woodward, Lee J. Cobb, David Wayne, Edwin Jerome, Terry Ann Ross, Ken Scott, Alistair Cooke. Screenplay: Nunnally Johnson (based on the book by Corbett Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley).
Joanne Woodward won an Oscar—and virtually every other acting prize in sight—for her titular role as Eve, a woman whose psyche
has frayed into three distinct personalities. From its strange opening prologue, narrated by a scientific "expert," the film
insists that its story was derived from a true incident and thus comprises a revelatory, crucial moment in the history of
psychological knowledge. Regardless of how closely The Three Faces of Eve hews to case histories or cognitive science,
no one could doubt that the film mostly exists to give an actress the workout of a lifetime. Woodward throws herself into
her role—or rather, into all three of her roles—with enough energy and skill that she actually grows even more compelling as
the film goes on. We do begin to believe that three different characters are competing for occupancy of Woodward's slender
frame. Yet unlike, say, Dead Ringers, a much later and much darker film in which a single
personality seems to split between two identical twins, The Three Faces of Eve never uses its provocative premise to
say anything interesting about identity, or science, or even about the relationship between its characters, all of whom—including
Lee J. Cobb's patient psychiatrist and David Wayne's baffled husband—pale into insignificance alongside Woodward's tour de
force. In the end, the actress is all dressed up in three different outfits, and she still doesn't have anywhere to
go. Grade: C+
- Academy Award Nominations and *Winners:
- *Best Actress: Joanne Woodward
- Golden Globe Nominations and *Winners:
- *Best Actress (Drama): Joanne Woodward
- Other Awards:
- National Board of Review—Best Actress: Joanne Woodward (also cited for No Down Payment)