What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Robert Aldrich
Oh hey, another movie from that top 100 horror movies poster I have! Time to get two birds stoned at once, in the words of Ricky LaFleur. I have heard a lot about this movie, hell, I’ve heard the song Bette Davis Eyes a hundred times. Time to see what the fuss is about.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is about two sisters. One sister is Baby Jane Hudson, a famous child star, known for singing and dancing. The other is is overlooked sister, Blanche Hudson, whom would later go on to be a famous actress and overshadow Baby Jane. Blanche was an A list celebrity until an unfortunate accident caused her to be paralyzed. We are to believe that Baby Jane was the one who hit her sister with the car. Now, both women are along in years and live together in their parents house. Baby Jane takes care of Blanche now after the accident and has grown to truly resent her. The evil and mean spirited things Baby Jane does, escalate as the film goes on.
First thing I will say about this movie is, I find it ironic that Bette Davis plays Jane, the evil and maniacal character while Joan Crawford plays the kind hearted and level headed Blanche. If you do not know why that is ironic, please watch Mommie Dearest! Anyway, the acting. The acting in this movie is awesome. Bette Davis steals the movie. The insanity of her character can be seen in many ways. How she lashes out, the looks she gives and her demeanor are all stellar. Joan Crawford also does a great job, being sympathetic and vulnerable.
This movie is really kind of a slow burn and could almost be seen as a character study. Jane starts off kind of bitchy, but slowly escalates into a murderer. Some parts I was confused at what they were trying to do. Blanche is desperately trying to get help, and she writes a note, and throws it outside to the neighbor. Why didn’t she just yell to the neighbor? Jane was gone and she knew it. I don’t get the point, other than to have the moment where Jane grabs the note and sees it. The end is kind of interesting. The cops are bearing down on Jane and she takes Blanche to the beach. While Blanche explains that she is dying, she tells Jane that she was the one that paralyzed herself. Jane wasn’t driving, she was, and she crashed into the gate and broke her back. Jane assumed she did it, and Blanche let her take the blame. Jane responds sadly “you mean this whole time we could’ve been friends?!”
You mean this whole time, we could've been friends?
This movie really was a good watch. My biggest issue was its length. This bad boy is over 2 hours long! Dear lord! They could’ve cut some of this out. Apparently, during the making of this movie, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford did NOT get along at all, so much of the animosity in this movie, is probably genuine. All in all I enjoyed this movie and it is worth a watch. I give this a B+.
