Starring Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Victor Buono
Screenplay by Lukas Heller
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Running time 128 minutes
USA 1962
Our last movie The Ruling Class was a wild British farce about a dysfunctional aristocratic family and their various hangers on. This darkly comic film also deals with family dynamics - but of a very different kind in a very different place.
Jane and Elvira - two ageing showbiz sisters long past their prime, played by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, live in a crumbling Hollywood mansion. Blanche is wheelchair bound and submissive and Jane her dominating, cracked and bitter carer.
There was a famous rivalry between these two great movie stars who had spent thirty years competing with one another for the best parts. They seemingly disliked each other intensely and the on screen fireworks between them are consequently spectacular!
Baby Jane’s director Robert Aldrich was one of Hollywood’s most interesting and diverse talents. He made some of Hollywoods toughest tough-guy pictures including The Dirty Dozen and The Longest Yard, edgy cult films like Kiss Me Deadlyand The Grissom Gang as well as over the top melodramas like Baby Jane and the lesbian drama The Killing Of Sister George.
Davis and Crawford are unforgettable in this rich stew of grande guignol as the weird sisters locked in an intense and twisted relationship. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? spawned a string of similar entertainments starring ageing Hollywood actresses including Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte,Whatever Happened To Aunt Alice? and Who Slew Auntie Roo?
'The ultimate camp Gothic bitchfight - vastly entertaining…'
