The Three Faces of Eve (1957)

In 1951, in Georgia, the submissive housewife and mother Eve White (Joanne Woodward) is brought by her husband Ralph White (David Wayne) to a consultation with Doctor Curtis Luther (Lee J. Cobb) since she has painful headaches followed by blackouts with no recollections of what she did. The rude Ralph tells that she bought expensive clothing and hurt their daughter Bonnie during one of these blackouts. Dr. Luther begins her therapy and soon Eve shows a new personality, the reckless and wild Eve Black that hates Ralph and loves to drink and dance with other men, and Dr. Luther diagnoses a case of multiple personality to his colleague Doctor Francis Day (Edwin Jerome).Ralph moves with Bonnie to Jacksonville and Eve continues her treatment. She tells that she is hearing voices, and Dr. Luther uses hypnosis to disclose more about her trauma. Out of the blue, a third personality emerges and tells that she is Jane that shows that is a balanced personality. Dr. Luther questions which personality should be the predominant. "The Three Faces of Eve" is based on a true story and based on a book written by two medical doctors about a case of multiple personality in Georgia. I do not know the impact of Nunnally Johnson's movie in 1957 since it is dated in the present days. But it is still a good docudrama, especially because of the magnificent performance of Joanne Woodward in the role of three different women. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "As Três Máscaras de Eva" ("The Three Masks of Eve")

Based on a true story, this film looks at the case of woman with multiple personality disorder. Woodward, in only her third film and her first lead role, won an Oscar and became a star with her fine performance here. Also good are Cobb as her psychiatrist and Wayne as her less-than-understanding husband. After starting with an interesting premise, the film tends to bog down in psychoanalysis. Too much time is spent on conversations between psychiatrist and patient, yet little insight is provided into the nature of the disorder. Furthermore, a complex disorder is presented as too simple, as is the final resolution.

I long ago learned to be skeptical of movies purporting to be a true story, or 'based' on a true story as it were. What I learned in doing some follow up on this picture, the story of Eve didn't end here, but continued for a number of years more and wound up including even more personalities. For all of that, "The Three Faces of Eve", whether accurately presented or not, makes for a fascinating film. I say that because Joanne Woodward's performance actually scared me a few times, not in the sense of having a dimension of horror to it, but as a frightening possibility that someone would actually have to go through life this way. The other unusual aspect of Eve's disorder had to do with the way each personality knew and was able to talk about the others. I suppose one could intuitively argue pro or con on the ability for that to occur with multiple personality disorder, but with no background or study in the field, I'm just not able to say.I've just recently watched two other pictures with Joanne Woodward - "Rally Round the Flag, Boys" and "The Long, Hot Summer", and I wasn't particularly impressed with her performance in either. With 'Eve', I'm satisfied that her reputation achieved the proper recognition with an Acadeny Award for the amazing job she did here. I really had the sense that she was somehow channeling these different characters into her portrayal, and it seemed at times genuinely creepy. Trying to put myself in the place of Mr. White, I just can't imagine what I would have done under the same circumstances. Probably better not to think about it.Nice job too by Lee J. Cobb as Eve's psychiatrist. I had to wonder though if the real Dr. Luther might have been just a bit more animated and incredulous at the idea of Eve's disorder. After all, every session with her afforded an opportunity to break new ground in exploring this frontier of mental illness. The naturalness in the way he spoke with and called forth Eve's various personalities was rather intriguing to me. I had to wonder if there was a clinically right or wrong way to approach multiple personality disorder, and here he was just plowing right ahead.Right after watching the movie I took a look at the clip of Miss Woodward accepting her Best Actress Oscar from John Wayne. Her acceptance speech was brief and to the point, though it was a bit surprising to hear her mention that she had dreamt of the moment since she was nine years old. It was interesting to learn that she had set a goal like that at such a tender age, about the same time a young Eve White was experiencing a trauma that would affect her life so dramatically forever.

"The Three Faces of Eve" is just the film for students of psychiatry. This was a landmark film in its own time, and still holds up after so many years. There is much to like, and I can't think of one thing I didn't like about it.Filmed in black and white, as usual the look always seems to impart a certain gravity to the story. It does so here; this is not really a happy tale, as things develop. Eve White (Joanne Woodward) has agreed to see a psychiatrist along with her husband Ralph (David Wayne – probably his most significant film role). She has been having problems with headaches and some strange events have occurred, at least one of which is quite alarming. The psychiatrist is of course befuddled with her testimony. As the story continues, she certainly is treated for her condition – evincing at first two and then three distinct personas – but she really is taxing contemporary knowledge of her kind of affliction. Joanne Woodward won the Best Actress award from the Academy in 1957. She was a fresh face at that time, yet there is no doubt she should have at least been nominated. She really convinces us that she is each one of the three people she could become. It is incredible how she can change on a dime from one "face" to another, and in fact she can even be induced to do so. Lee J. Cobb (as Dr. Luther) really supports this film and the character(s) of Eve, and it is seems to me a big oversight by the Academy that he wasn't nominated for an award; two of the nominees for Best Supporting Actor (Russ Tamblyn and Arthur Kennedy) had appeared in "Peyton Place". The sheer amount of dialogue Cobb delivers and the manner in which he essentially manipulates Eve to open up is really on the mark. It should also be mentioned this was probably Nunally Johnson's best directorial effort. In an interview Johnson relates that he really wanted Orson Welles to play the doctor's role (http://www.archive.org).There is more to the story of the real person's life upon who this was based (Chris Sizemore) then we are able to cover in this movie. The above mentioned interview sheds some light on that. But this story stands on its own, in a big way.Four stars.