Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) was a child star with a sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford) who felt left out. Later in life, however, the tables were turned, with Blanche as a big movie star and Jane as a has-been. Most of the film, however, is set when they're in their late 50s or early 60s. Neither is very famous any longer and Jane must take care of Blanche. The only problem is that Jane is slightly off her rocker.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is the first of two Bette Davis films, with Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) being the other, which have a number of similarities. They are both psychological horror/thriller films, directed by Robert Aldrich, adapted from novels by Henry Farrell, with screenplays by Lukas Heller, both filmed in black & white in the early 1960s--a time when that began to be more of an artistic than a budgetary decision or necessity--and both very similar in tone, with Bette Davis as a "crazy old bat" in a big old house, interacting with a female rival, with major supporting characters as maids and men who are around as more submissive love interests, and so on. For many viewers this is the better film of the two, but for my money, I much preferred Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Even though my scores for the two films are close, the difference in quality for me was greater than my ratings would suggest, with Hush a 10 for much of its length--a slow, somewhat meandering middle section brought the final score down-while Baby Jane never really rose above a 7, instead occasionally threatening to end up with an even lower score.
The main problem for me was that the slow meandering that was a flaw with the middle section of Hush is the norm in Baby Jane. I'm almost never someone who believes that a film should be shorter, but this is a rare case where a lot of liberal editing--say cutting the film by 45 minutes (the film is 134 minutes long)--could easily bring my score up to a 9. Of course, it also shouldn't be necessary to fix the film at that later stage, and we might just as well blame the looseness and pacing on the script. Some viewers might also find a problem with a few logical points in the script, but I think they're explainable if we were to spend time delving into psychological backgrounds and motivations of the characters.
Whatever the cause, as it stands, although there are some horror and/or thriller aspects to the film, it is really recommendable only to viewers interested in realist drama material, and even then, only to viewers who like that genre slow and relatively uneventful. (Although another point of interest to horror fans is that it's easy to see a number of at least superficial similarities between Baby Jane and Stephen King's Misery, which was made into a film in 1990.)
The performances are good. Davis is exquisite enough to make me almost wish that she had only played loonies and psychos throughout her career. Crawford has the difficult task of playing a complex, understated, physically challenging role. She goes through a number of subtle transformations, and somehow manages to look beautiful even when she's black & blue, bedridden and not wearing any make-up. Victor Buono, as composer/pianist Edwin Flagg, is able to convey a tragic underdog and provide comic relief at the same time, despite his relatively small amount of screen time. The performances are the crux of the film and the reason it receives as high of a score as it does. But they cannot carry the whole film. Despite a number of very good and occasionally horrific scenes, the biggest tragedy may be that film wasn't tightened up more. If you like Baby Jane at all, be sure you also check out Hush.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is the first of two Bette Davis films, with Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) being the other, which have a number of similarities. They are both psychological horror/thriller films, directed by Robert Aldrich, adapted from novels by Henry Farrell, with screenplays by Lukas Heller, both filmed in black & white in the early 1960s--a time when that began to be more of an artistic than a budgetary decision or necessity--and both very similar in tone, with Bette Davis as a "crazy old bat" in a big old house, interacting with a female rival, with major supporting characters as maids and men who are around as more submissive love interests, and so on. For many viewers this is the better film of the two, but for my money, I much preferred Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Even though my scores for the two films are close, the difference in quality for me was greater than my ratings would suggest, with Hush a 10 for much of its length--a slow, somewhat meandering middle section brought the final score down-while Baby Jane never really rose above a 7, instead occasionally threatening to end up with an even lower score.
The main problem for me was that the slow meandering that was a flaw with the middle section of Hush is the norm in Baby Jane. I'm almost never someone who believes that a film should be shorter, but this is a rare case where a lot of liberal editing--say cutting the film by 45 minutes (the film is 134 minutes long)--could easily bring my score up to a 9. Of course, it also shouldn't be necessary to fix the film at that later stage, and we might just as well blame the looseness and pacing on the script. Some viewers might also find a problem with a few logical points in the script, but I think they're explainable if we were to spend time delving into psychological backgrounds and motivations of the characters.
Whatever the cause, as it stands, although there are some horror and/or thriller aspects to the film, it is really recommendable only to viewers interested in realist drama material, and even then, only to viewers who like that genre slow and relatively uneventful. (Although another point of interest to horror fans is that it's easy to see a number of at least superficial similarities between Baby Jane and Stephen King's Misery, which was made into a film in 1990.)
The performances are good. Davis is exquisite enough to make me almost wish that she had only played loonies and psychos throughout her career. Crawford has the difficult task of playing a complex, understated, physically challenging role. She goes through a number of subtle transformations, and somehow manages to look beautiful even when she's black & blue, bedridden and not wearing any make-up. Victor Buono, as composer/pianist Edwin Flagg, is able to convey a tragic underdog and provide comic relief at the same time, despite his relatively small amount of screen time. The performances are the crux of the film and the reason it receives as high of a score as it does. But they cannot carry the whole film. Despite a number of very good and occasionally horrific scenes, the biggest tragedy may be that film wasn't tightened up more. If you like Baby Jane at all, be sure you also check out Hush.