Monday, August 01, 2022

My Review of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)

 


Written by Lukas Heller
Directed by Robert Aldrich

Jane (to Blanche): "Then you mean, all this time, we could have been friends?"

Ah, yes, the film that somewhat launched a sub genre with hagsploitation and revived the careers of two legendary Hollywood icons while at the same time generating its own iconography along with the leads being anything but friends during and after it's turbulent production. 

Based on the Henry Farrell novel of the same, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? opened in 1917 with vaudeville star Baby Jane Hudson (Julie Allred) going from entertaining a happy crowd with her cutesy rendition to her father to being an almighty brat backstage while her sister, Blanche (Gina Gillespie) looked on, determined to be a bigger success than her bratty sister.

Cut to several decades later and the roles between sisters certainly reversed. Blanche became something of a credible actor with hit movies while Jane immensely struggled. A car crash involving the sisters would then reverse their outcomes once again as the two became more dependent on the other to a very toxic degree.

The wheelchair bound Blanche (Joan Crawford) now found herself as the mercy of an increasingly unstable Jane (Bette Davis) and the latter spent the majority of the movie both physically and psychologically tormenting her more successful sister to such a shamelessly dark and rather camp degree. It also didn't help Blanche that every time she tried to find a way to thwart Jane that the latter would strike back to such a venomous degree.

You, if there was ever a movie that really amplified dangerous sibling rivalry, it's definitely this one. Jane's mistreatment of Blanche certainly crossed so many lines (including the murder of Blanche's only ally, house maid Elvira), it's almost a miracle that she didn't straight up kill Blanche while she was at it. Needless to say that Bette Davis owned the role.

It's truly a powerhouse performance that Bette Davis gave here, making Jane Hudson into one hell of a dangerous, scary, almost tragic and childlike villain of the piece. Jane's actions are horrifying to watch but they're absolutely compelling between the love/hate relationship she had with Blanche, not to mention her sanity chipping away. The final scene alone at the beach with both sisters felt bittersweet and tragic.

As for Joan Crawford, it's a less showy performance but it's also one of her best performances nonetheless. Although Blanche was seen as the more rational and outwardly sympathetic of the sisters but like Jane, she too had an underlying darkness within, especially when she confessed to wanting kill Jane at the start of the movie. In another life, maybe the two of them would've been friend.

- Victor Buono has a nice role in the movie as an accompanist while Davis's daughter, BD also briefly appeared as a neighbour's daughter who disliked Jane.
- Davis and Crawford would reunite with the director of this movie for a similarly themed film called Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, though Crawford would be replaced during production.
- The movie would get remade in the 1990's for television and with some significant changes made to the source material.
- Chronology: 1917, 1935 and with the majority of the movie taking place in 1962. The movie was released in theatres on Halloween of that year.

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? has undeniably earned it's place in cinema history and it's certainly aged well as a movie too. Both Davis and Crawford give it their all and play off one another beautifully. They're so compelling to watch here.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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