Not much to add here. Others have said what went horribly wrong with 'Wicked Stepmother' very well. Bette Davis is considered a Hollywood legend, and a legend in any field, for very good reason. She had many great and even iconic performances in her long career, was often a bright spot in her early films and her high standard even continued quite late on in her career. Despite her apparent and understandable disgust with the film, it was intriguing to see how she would fare in her final film and in a sort of role she has done well elsewhere.
Sadly, 'Wicked Stepmother' is an awful film all round. It features Davis' worst ever performance, and she isn't even the worst thing about it, in her worst film. 'Wicked Stepmother' is a film that would embarrass any actor regardless the stage of their career, just as much as it would do for anybody who has the misfortune to watch it. The film may have its defenders, and fair enough, but count me in as another person who found it to be that bad a film and if there was a contender for the worst final film for any actor/actress this would be a very worthy winner.
A very ill-looking Davis gives a very, very rare atrocious performance in a ridiculously short amount of screen time. A mess of clearly not looking like she wanted to be there and over-compensating to the heavens, she knew that her material was bad and that she was well above it and that shows. Pretty much all the acting is poor, most walking through their roles, with the least bad performances coming from Colleen Camp and the cat.
That is not surprising though that the cast were on bad form with everything else bad as well. The script goes well overboard on its attempts at comedy, none of it funny and actually pretty laboured and juvenile, and was pretty improvisatory-sounding. Even an ill-advised shot at Joan Crawford was thrown in. The story also felt very contrived and made-up-as-it-went-along, hence the lack of coherence, the excessive re-writing obvious throughout with far too much of the main plot feeling shoe-horned in and too hurriedly written.
'Wicked Stepmother' has no characters that are well defined or worth rooting for, found them all annoying and dull. Davis' premature departure from production clearly caused a big amount of trouble and it is evident in such slapped together and disorganised execution in a coming through loud and clear struggle to work way around it. Even the production values look cheap, with a look that could easily pass for a low-budget film from 10-15 years earlier, and the direction is chaotic indicative of a director who didn't know what to do with the film once Davis was no longer there.
Overall, a major misfire and only to be seen for completest and curiosity value. 1/10
Sadly, 'Wicked Stepmother' is an awful film all round. It features Davis' worst ever performance, and she isn't even the worst thing about it, in her worst film. 'Wicked Stepmother' is a film that would embarrass any actor regardless the stage of their career, just as much as it would do for anybody who has the misfortune to watch it. The film may have its defenders, and fair enough, but count me in as another person who found it to be that bad a film and if there was a contender for the worst final film for any actor/actress this would be a very worthy winner.
A very ill-looking Davis gives a very, very rare atrocious performance in a ridiculously short amount of screen time. A mess of clearly not looking like she wanted to be there and over-compensating to the heavens, she knew that her material was bad and that she was well above it and that shows. Pretty much all the acting is poor, most walking through their roles, with the least bad performances coming from Colleen Camp and the cat.
That is not surprising though that the cast were on bad form with everything else bad as well. The script goes well overboard on its attempts at comedy, none of it funny and actually pretty laboured and juvenile, and was pretty improvisatory-sounding. Even an ill-advised shot at Joan Crawford was thrown in. The story also felt very contrived and made-up-as-it-went-along, hence the lack of coherence, the excessive re-writing obvious throughout with far too much of the main plot feeling shoe-horned in and too hurriedly written.
'Wicked Stepmother' has no characters that are well defined or worth rooting for, found them all annoying and dull. Davis' premature departure from production clearly caused a big amount of trouble and it is evident in such slapped together and disorganised execution in a coming through loud and clear struggle to work way around it. Even the production values look cheap, with a look that could easily pass for a low-budget film from 10-15 years earlier, and the direction is chaotic indicative of a director who didn't know what to do with the film once Davis was no longer there.
Overall, a major misfire and only to be seen for completest and curiosity value. 1/10