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Directed By
Robert Aldrich
Written By:
Lukas Heller, Henry Farrell
Cast:
Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Anna Lee, Maidie Norman, Marjorie Bennett, Bert Freed, Dave Willock, Russ Conway, Maxine Cooper, Robert Cornthwaite, B.D. Merrill
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Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
April 24th, 2008
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'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' features one of the definitive Bette Davis performances, a throwback to the types of roles she can play best, those that involve fits of drunken madness and a generally sour, b*tchy attitude. Her character here, Jane Hudson, is a former child star. We meet her in 1917, dancing around on stage and singing a duet with her father, who dotes on her, gives in to her every demand, perhaps because he is afraid not to. She is an obnoxious brat whose fame and success has gone to her head. Two decades later, Blanche, Jane's sister, has become one of Hollywood's top actresses, and Jane's best years are behind her. Blanche, much kinder to Jane than Jane would be to her, has negotiated a contract that guarantees that her studio has to make a picture with Jane, even if she is not a very talented thespian. Blanche is crippled in a car accident, and Jane is the prime suspect, and we have no reason to doubt her culpability. Now Blanche is confined to a wheelchair, and must rely on Jane to take care of her, which is not a particularly nice situation to be in. Jane subjects the vulnerable Blanche (Joan Crawford) to psychological, physical, and emotional abuse, easily detected by Blanche's personal maid Elvira (Maidie Norman), who tries to convince Blanche that Jane needs help. This is fairly obvious; Jane has turned into a cruel and bitter drunk, resentful that Blanche still gets fan mail and that her movies are shown regularly on TV. No one remembers Baby Jane. Jane is developing a mental illness, probably a dissociative disorder of some kind; she regresses to a child-like persona occasionally and creepily rehearses her old routine, complete with powdery make-up that is supposed to make her look younger, but only highlights the wrinkles on her aging face. She hires a penniless pianist named Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) to rehearse with her, and he is disturbed by what he sees, but goes along with it because it pays well. Blanche believes that Jane is trying to kill her, scaring her into not eating by placing a dead bird and rat in her dinner tray, removing her phone and emergency bell, and even tying her up and taping her mouth shut to keep her quiet while Edwin visits. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that Jane plans on murdering Blanche. Blanche discovers that Jane has been trying to forge her signature, so she doesn't have to rely on her to cash the checks they live on. And Jane does kill Elvira, and hides the body, which is later found by the cops. I would say that this Davis's show, but Joan Crawford is also exquisite as Blanche, and it is a treat to see these two phenomenal actresses onscreen together, even though I wish there would be verbal sparring between them, but Blanche simply isn't that kind of character. She is also not in much of a condition to fight back when Jane bullies her.
It is a chilling drama, sometimes categorized inaccurately as a horror film; terror might be more precise than horror. The music is rich and expressive, tapping, at key moments, into Jane's fragile state of mind and Blanche's helplessness, no more compellingly than a scene where she is caught by Jane making a call on the downstairs phone, having crawled (and tumbled) to it from her upstairs bedroom. The cinematography by Ernest Haller is appropriately moody and atmospheric, from Blanche's claustrophobic bedroom (with only a barred window that allows her to see the outside world, and her somewhat pesky neighbor, Mrs. Bates, as she plants flowers in her backyard) to the dark and empty house itself, filled with Blanche's cries and Jane's cackles. I don't think there is anything special about Norma Koch's Oscar-winning costume design. I also liked Buono as the curious Flagg, who lives with his mother, whom he calls by her first name, and is polite and soft-spoken in Jane's presence, but a bit unruly everywhere else, but like Jane, he also drinks to deal with his problems and the stresses in his life. In a sense, I can draw a comparison between Jane and Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, both are trying to recapture their past glory, and both fail, but Norma is oblivious to her obscurity; Jane is not, in fact, her constant awareness of it is what fuels her madness. And Norma is not as mean-spirited, even though she does have her share of problems.
The ending is what I find most disappointing. We learn something at the very end that changes our perception of Blanche, not for the better really, but it doesn't matter too much. Jane's regression is also complete, she lays Blanche on the beach and no one else seems to notice that Blanche looks very pale and sickly. Jane plays in the sand and craves the attention she gets when two nearby cops and everyone else crowd around her and Blanche. She is in the limelight again, even negative publicity is still good publicity, and she relishes it. So, the ending is not a total failure, but it does seem out of sync with everything that preceded it, mainly in what Blanche reveals to Jane. But, overall, this is Davis at her finest, and the film remains a classic.
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 | Lark
Apr 25, 2008 8:56 AM
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| I can remember catching this film on canle (Lifetime maybe??) when I was young. I dunno...maybe 12 or so...and it was terrifying...but in such a way to keep even a pre-teen's (well this one anyhow) attention. I'd like to revisit it, thanks for the reminder. |
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