It's been called the bitchiest movie ever made: a caustic critique of New York theatre folk that skewers their pomposity and insecurities with devastating accuracy.
But thanks to a superlative cast, a brilliantly witty screenplay and top-drawer direction from Joseph L Mankiewicz, it's also one of the most entertaining.
Bette Davis may not have been the first choice(that was Claudette Colbert) to play Margo Channing, the Broadway grande dame who lives to regret her generosity towards Anne Baxter's ruthlessly ambitious ingenue.
But she undoubtedly made the role her own, delivering a masterclass in scene-stealing only George Sanders' urbane critic Addison De Witt comes close to rivalling.
Oh, and who's that playing Miss Caswell, buxom graduate of the Copacabana School of Dramatic Art? Why, it's only Marilyn Monroe. Impeccable.
