This undisputed camp classic of the thriller genre will no doubt please generations to come. Even given the fact that it's in many ways a "cheap-jack" film, it merits countless viewings due to the one-and-only legendary teaming of the two greatest movie divas Hollywood ever knew: Bette Davis & Joan Crawford. The film deserves its cult status. As the demented alcoholic slattern Baby Jane Hudson, Davis frankly shocked the public and critics alike with her fearless portrayal of a grotesque misfit who can't forget that she was once a child star in Vaudeville. It's fitting, by the way, to show Blanche as the older sister in the prologue: Davis was a full four years younger than her screen rival in real life. The film goes on and on in a light dimmer than necessary, and the cop-out ending isn't exactly Hitchcock, but the performances are indeed striking. The wig Davis wore for her interpretation of the title role was an old bleached-out wig reputedly once worn by Crawford in either a twenties silent or in the 1939 fiasco ICE FOLLIES OF 1939: no one seems to know for sure. As the wheelchair-bound crippled Blanche, Crawford wisely underplays Davis, and her performance is admirably restrained - if a mite deceiving: she's not all sugar and spice, it turns out! During the filming, director Robert Aldrich had to contend with each actress individually griping about the other: somehow he drew two nicely contrasted performances instead of totally letting the two icons chew each other up & spit each other out. The house in which the film was shot still stands in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles. Maidie Norman and Victor Buono are terrific in their roles of Elvira the maid & Edwin Flagg respectively. Anna Lee has a cameo as the nosey neighbour, Mrs. Bates - whose daughter is played by Davis's fourteen year-old daughter B.D. Indeed, talent must skip a generation...
Review of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
