All About Eve while "Harrison's Reports" called it "a fascinating, continually absorbing story about Broadway theatrical people, given a mature treatment and penetrated with realistic dialogue and flashes of slick, sardonic humor." John McCarten of "The New Yorker" called it "a thoroughly entertaining movie." Writing in 2000, film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times" praised the film, saying Bette Davis' character "veteran actress Margo Channing in "All About Eve" was her greatest role." Boxoffice.com stated that it "is a classic of the American cinema – to this day the quintessential depiction of ruthless ambition in the entertainment industry, with legendary performances
Bette Davis derided; Pauline Kael described "Now, Voyager" (1942) as a "shlock classic", and by the mid-1940s, her sometimes mannered and histrionic performances had become the subject of caricature. Edwin Schallert, for the "Los Angeles Times", praised Davis' performance in "Mr. Skeffington" (1944), while observing, "The mimics will have more fun than a box of monkeys imitating Miss Davis"; and Dorothy Manners, at the "Los Angeles Examiner", said of her performance in the poorly received "Beyond the Forest" (1949): "No night club caricaturist has ever turned in such a cruel imitation of the Davis mannerisms as Bette turns on herself in this