What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Dir: Robert Aldrich

1962

*****

Robert Aldrich’s 1962 cult hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? probably wouldn’t have been half as popular had it not featured two of cinemas greatest, and somewhat infamous actors. It is fair to say that What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is probably more famous for what happened behind the camera than what happened in front of it. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were huge stars but hadn’t been in a hit film for quite a while and both saw this as an opportunity. The screenplay by Lukas Heller was based on the 1960 novel by Henry Farrell. Upon the film's release, it was met with a real mix of reviews and it seemed the critics either hated it or loved it. These days you’d be under the assumption that it received widespread critical and box office acclaim but this took time, although it was later nominated for five Academy Awards. It was perhaps the first mainstream cult film of its kind. The film begins in 1917 and is very convincing. Baby Jane Hudson is a well-known vaudevillian child star while her older sister Blanche lives in her shadow. It is clear that Baby Jane is spoiled and rotten and that her father is responsible. Blanche looks on with hurt and resentment. By 1935, their fortunes have reversed: Blanche is a successful film actress and Jane lives in obscurity, her films having failed. One night, Jane, able to imitate Blanche's voice perfectly, mocks her at a party. That same night, Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who is found three days later in a drunken stupor. In 1962, Blanche (Joan Crawford) and Jane (Bette Davis) are living together in a mansion purchased with Blanche's movie earnings. Blanche's mobility is limited by a wheelchair and the lack of an elevator or wheelchair ramp to her upstairs bedroom. Jane has become alcoholic and mentally ill, and she treats Blanche cruelly because she resents her success. When Blanche informs Jane she intends to sell the house, Jane rightly suspects Blanche will commit her to an asylum once the house is sold. She removes the telephone from Blanche's bedroom, cutting her off from the outside world. Jane begins denying her food, until she serves Blanche's dead pet parakeet and, at a later meal, a dead rat to her on a dinner platter. Although Jane is well into middle age, she dresses like "Baby Jane" and wears caked-on layers of makeup and childlike curls and ribbons in her hair. Jane becomes obsessed with recapturing her childhood stardom and posts a newspaper advertisement for a pianist to accompany her vocal act. When Jane leaves the house, Blanche tries to get the attention of her neighbor, Mrs. Bates (Anna Lee), by throwing a note pleading for help out her bedroom window. Jane returns in time to notice the note and prevent Mrs. Bates from seeing it. When the Hudsons' maid Elvira Stitt (Maidie Norman) comes to the house, Jane gives her a paid day off to keep her from seeing Blanche. Eccentric, overweight and cash-strapped Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) sees Jane's newspaper advertisement and arrives at the mansion for an audition; Jane hires him as her accompanist. After cringing at her off-key warbling, Edwin insincerely flatters Jane and encourages her to revive her act. While Jane drives Edwin home, Blanche searches the house for food and discovers Jane has been forging her signature on cheques to buy costumes for her act and to access Blanche's money should she die. Desperate for help, Blanche crawls down the stairs and calls their doctor, telling him of Jane's erratic behavior and begging him to come to the house. Jane returns to find Blanche on the phone and beats her unconscious before calling the doctor and telling the doctor not to come because Blanche has chosen to see a different doctor. Elvira returns the next day, but Jane abruptly fires her and sends her away. While Jane is at the bank cashing a cheque, Elvira returns to the house because she is suspicious. Unable to find Blanche, Elvira attempts to open the locked door of her bedroom by removing its hinges with a hammer and screwdriver. When Jane returns, Mrs. Bates tells her she saw Elvira go into the house. Jane confronts Elvira, who threatens to call the police. After Jane reluctantly gives Elvira the key to Blanche's bedroom, she finds Blanche bound-and-gagged and weak from starvation. Shocked, Elvira fails to notice Jane sneak up behind her with the hammer. Jane beats Elvira to death and disposes of her body. A few days later, the police call to tell Jane that Elvira's cousin has reported her missing. Jane panics and prepares to leave, taking Blanche with her. Before they can leave, Edwin shows up uninvited and drunk. After he discovers Blanche in her bed, bound, gagged, and emaciated, Edwin flees and notifies the authorities. Jane drives Blanche to the beach and reverts to her childhood self. Dehydrated and near death, Blanche confesses that she is paraplegic through her own fault: on the night of the accident, Blanche tried to run her over with a car because she was angry at Jane for mocking her. Blanche's spine broke when her car struck the iron gates outside their mansion. Since then, Blanche has led Jane to believe she was to blame for the accident, forcing Jane to be her full-time caregiver and stoking bitter resentment. Grasping the situation, Jane asks, "You mean all this time we could have been friends?" With childlike joy, Jane dances before a crowd of startled onlookers, believing she is once again "Baby Jane" performing for her adoring fans. Two police officers who find the Hudsons' illegally parked car nearby and connect it with Elvira's murder see Blanche lying motionless on the sand and rush to her. The film ends without revealing whether Blanche survives her ordeal. The intensely bitter Hollywood rivalry between the film's two stars, Davis and Crawford, was heavily important to the film's initial success. This in part led to the revitalization of the then-waning careers of the two stars. In the years after release, critics continued to acclaim the film for its psychologically driven – often camp black comedy and the creation of the psycho-biddy (aka hag horror) subgenre, including Aldrich's Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, and director Curtis Harrington's Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? and What's the Matter with Helen?. It was parodied brilliantly in the Italian comedy What Ever Happened to Baby Toto? The character of Liza, Mrs. Bates' daughter, was played by Davis' real-life daughter B. D. Merrill. After Joan Crawford's daughter Christina wrote the best-selling tell-all book Mommie Dearest, Merrill published a memoir that depicted her mother in an unfavorable light. Both books propelled the film into the realms of cult classic. With all the stories of rivalry between the two actors it is easy to forget how great their performances were. In later years both actors were quoted as saying how impressed they were by the other, although it was generally followed by a back-handed complement. Bette Davis created her own makeup for the role of "Baby Jane" Hudson. Director Robert Aldrich said it closely matched his idea for the character's grotesque makeup, but he was afraid to suggest it lest he offend Davis. Unlike most of her peers in Hollywood, Davis was unafraid to wear ugly costumes and makeup if they enhanced her performance. She wore unflattering makeup portraying a vain socialite disfigured by diphtheria in Mr. Skeffington and donned severe makeup and partially shaved her head to play Queen Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen. Crawford was scheduled to appear alongside Davis on a publicity tour of but cancelled at the last minute. Davis claimed that Crawford backed out because she did not want to share the stage with her. In a 1972 telephone conversation, Crawford told author Shaun Considine that after seeing the film she urged Davis to go and have a look. When she failed to hear back from her co-star, Crawford called Davis and asked her what she thought of the film. Davis replied, "You were so right, Joan. The picture is good. And I was terrific." Crawford said, "That was it. She never said anything about my performance. Not a word." Considine alleges that this incident and Davis' refusal to acknowledge her acting ability led Crawford to cancel the publicity tour and upstage Davis at the Oscars. However, prior to the Oscars ceremony, Crawford contacted the Best Actress nominees who were unable to attend the ceremonies and offered to accept the award on their behalf if they won. Davis claimed that Crawford lobbied against her among Academy voters. Anne Bancroft won Best actress for The Miracle Worker, but was in New York performing a stage play; she had agreed to let Crawford accept the award on her behalf if she won. Crawford triumphantly swept on-stage to pick up the trophy. Davis later said, "It would have meant a million more dollars to our film if I had won. Joan was thrilled I hadn't." As both Davis and Crawford had accepted lower salaries in exchange for a share of the film's profits, Davis considered it foolish of Crawford to have worked against their common interests, especially at a time when roles for actresses their age were scarce. Crawford later acknowledged the difficulty she was having with Davis because of the Oscar incident, but added, "She acted like Baby Jane was a one-woman show after they nominated her. What was I supposed to do, let her hog all the glory, act like I hadn't even been in the movie? She got the nomination. I didn't begrudge her that, but it would have been nice if she'd been a little gracious in interviews and given me a little credit. I would have done it for her.” Because she was then a member of the Pepsi-Cola board of directors (her husband was the director), Joan Crawford managed to see that product placement shots of the soft drinks appeared in all of her later films. Although nearly imperceptible, Pepsi does show up in this one. During the last sequence, a guy runs up to the refreshment stand on the beach and tries to collect the deposit on some empty Pepsi bottles, a transaction that actually only happened in stores. Bette Davis had a Coca-Cola machine installed on set to deliberately provoke her. Both performances are brilliant, although I feel that Davis knew the characters a little better than Crawford. Davis’s performance was more method, she got into the character and did what was necessary while Crawford still tried to keep up with real life Hollywood glamour. Truth be told, Victor Buono almost upstages them both. It is old-school but remains contemporary in many respects, the story could be told now with very little needed in order to up date it. It represents that darker side of Hollywood, the side we’re all interested in but the side those in the business don’t want us to see. The characters are beautifully written and brilliantly performed and the black and white cinematography, as suggested by Davis (“Colour would just make a sad story look pretty”), is perfect. A very mainstream cult classic.