What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the article about the 1960 novel from which this film was adapted, see What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Produced by Robert Aldrich
Written by Lukas Heller (screenplay)
Henry Farrell (novel)
Starring Bette Davis
Joan Crawford
Victor Buono
Music by Frank DeVol
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) October 31, 1962 Flag of the United States United States
Running time 134 min.
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) is a psychological thriller film directed by Robert Aldrich, and starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the novel of the same name by Henry Farrell.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

As the film opens in 1917, six-year-old Baby Jane Hudson becomes an enormously successful child star in vaudeville while her older sister, Blanche, is forced to remain quietly in the background. As the two reach maturity in the 20's and early 30's, however, Jane loses both her appeal and her talent, and Blanche develops into a beautiful and renowned film actress. Then, at the height of her career, Blanche is crippled in an automobile accident for which the alcoholic Jane is held responsible.

As the years pass, the two sisters become virtual recluses in an old mansion, where the slatternly and guilt-ridden Jane (Davis) cares for the helpless Blanche (Crawford). When she learns Blanche is planning to sell the house and perhaps place her in a home, Jane plots a diabolical revenge. She serves her sister trays of dead rats and parakeets, tears out her phone, and keeps her a prisoner in her bedroom.

She even resorts to killing their black maid, Elvira (Maidie Norman), with a hammer when the woman becomes suspicious and threatens to go to the police. Jane is also planning to make a comeback and has hired an out of work pianist, Edwin Flagg (Buono), to accompany her. When Edwin discovers Blanche gagged and bound to her bed, he runs hysterically from the house.

Realizing he will go to the police, Jane drags Blanche into a car and drives to a nearby beach. There Blanche confesses that she had arranged the automobile accident and had intended to kill her sister to avenge herself for the years of humiliation she had spent in the shadow of Baby Jane. As the police arrive upon the scene, the now totally deranged Jane goes into her song-and-dance routine of long ago.

[edit] Production notes

The pairing of Bette and Joan was, by most accounts suggested by Crawford, who had worked with Aldrich on Autumn Leaves (1956) and claimed she had always wanted to work with Davis. The tension between Blanche and Jane onscreen was by most accounts equaled by the rivalry between the two offscreen[1].

The stars reportedly bickered over salaries and who would receive top billing. A great deal of friction was apparently also generated mid-production by Joan and Bette's very different acting styles -- Davis played Baby Jane to the excessive, hysterical hilt, while Crawford tended to cower and remain passive and understated[2].

The film received a total of five Academy Award nominations, and a Best Costume Oscar for designer Norma Koch. Davis received her 10th, and last nomination, for Best Actress. Davis' daughter, Barbara Davis (nicknamed "B.D."), has a small role as the teenage girl next door[3].

In 2003, the character of Baby Jane Hudson, played by Davis, was ranked #44 on the American Film Institute list of the 50 Best Villains of American Cinema.

[edit] Principal cast

[edit] Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Bosley Crowther observed, "[Davis and Crawford] do get off some amusing and eventually blood-chilling displays of screaming sororal hatred and general monstrousness...The feeble attempts that Mr. Aldrich has made to suggest the irony of two once idolized and wealthy females living in such depravity and the pathos of their deep-seated envy having brought them to this, wash out very quickly under the flood of sheer grotesquerie."[4]

Variety says, "Although the results heavily favor Davis (and she earns the credit), it should be recognized that the plot, of necessity, allows her to run unfettered through all the stages of oncoming insanity...Crawford gives a quiet, remarkably fine interpretation of the crippled Blanche, held in emotionally by the nature and temperament of the role."[5]

[edit] Awards

[edit] Wins

[edit] Nominations

[edit] In popular culture

  • Bette Davis's character's personality is somewhat parodied in a Seinfeld episode when the character Kramer goes to Los Angeles to follow a film career. An elderly lady in his apartment calls him from the stairs, mocking the film.
  • In an episode of The Simpsons titled "Smart and Smarter", Lisa has a nightmare in which she and Maggie have grown up to mirror the adulthood of Blanche and Jane, with Maggie being a frail wheelchair bound cripple and Lisa being the deranged alcoholic with too much make up.

[edit] References

  1. ^ What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at Turner Classic Movies
  2. ^ What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at Turner Classic Movies
  3. ^ What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at Turner Classic Movies
  4. ^ New York Times review
  5. ^ Variety review

[edit] External links


v • d • e
American films of the 1960s
1960 •1961 •1962 •1963 •1964 •1965 •1966 •1967 •1968 •1969