Bette Davis well-known, particularly "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night". She was again nominated for an Academy Award, and critics such as Gene Ringgold described her Margo as her "all-time best performance". Pauline Kael wrote that much of Mankiewicz' vision of "the theater" was "nonsense", but commended Davis, writing "[the film is] saved by one performance that is the real thing: Bette Davis is at her most instinctive and assured. Her actress - vain, scared, a woman who goes too far in her reactions and emotions - makes the whole thing come alive." Davis won a Best Actress
All About Eve subtlety employed in "All About Eve" is seen as primarily being due to Production Code restrictions on the depiction of homosexuals in the media during this time. However, notwithstanding those restrictions, Corber cites the film as but one example of a recurrent theme within American film of the homosexual as an emotionally bereft predator. The documentary "The Celluloid Closet" also affirms this theme to which Corber refers, including citing numerous other film examples from the same Production Code time period in which "All About Eve" was made. Another important theme of the film, in terms of war politics and sexuality,