What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

THIS poor excuse for a movie rates 8.0?? Okay, I was 6 yrs from being born when this flick was released. So may be I can't "understand" its nuances, Zeitgeist, and related nostalgia. Unbelievable that some compare "... Jane?" to Hitchcock! I watched maybe 1hr, and then abandoned this over-rated, over-long, confusing mess of a motion picture. Won't list/name flaws ... I can't count that high and, IAC, am limited to 1000 words per IMDb Guidelines! But seriously .... I've sampled plenty of similar-genre flicks or TV episodes from the late 50s/early 60s ... and there are LOTS better. LOTS! The only attributes this waste of celluloid has going for it is okay cinematography and an interesting soundtrack. Maybe the orig novel on which this film was based PLAYS better...

source: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

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.

Maudlin acting. Manufactured coincidences. Even the premise was improbable: A woman agrees to live with the sister who maimed her? I don't buy it. The main thing the movie had going for it would have been the general plot line I was prepared to give the movie six or seven stars when I thought it might have been the first with that plot line. But it was at least 12 years too late. "Sunset Boulevard" had a similar plot line, and the differing details in "Baby Jane" weren't interesting enough or even plausible enough to justify another 195 minutes of film about aging Hollywood divas luring innocent dupes into twisted plans to regain fame.

I don't think I walked into this one with the right set of expectations. I expected a low-fi, creepy bit of occult-tinted fun from an age before horror films were bloated, over-done sacks of crap, and what I got was much different. I wouldn't really say this is a straight horror movie like Psycho or The Birds, as it unfolds itself like a riveting drama of two sisters instead. The acting is phenomenal, though, at least from our two lead characters, and the way they play off each other is just fantastic. This one takes a while to get going, but once it does, you are in for a high-octane, creepy thrill ride. Recommended to fans of older horror/suspense type movies.

It is well documented the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, to put it mildly, didn't like each other very much. But to their credit, they saw the advantage of teaming up in a bizarre horror film that would revive their ebbing careers. That film was "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" In 1917 Baby Jane Hudson is a big star in vaudeville with her father. Her sister Blanche is envious of her success and vows to be more famous some day. Fast forward to 1935 and Blanche has turned into Joan Crawford and Baby Jane, Bette Davis. Blanche has become a successful movie star while Jane's career has floundered. A tragic accident causes Blanche to become paralyzed and Jane to become her full time caregiver. The rivalry between the two carries on. Both are immersed in their past successes however, Jane has begun to lose it. She continually harasses Blanche to the point of serving up bizarre meals to force Blanche to stop eating. Blanche is prevented in calling for help by the ever increasingly paranoid Jane. Housemaid Elvira Stitt (Maidie Norman), sympathetic to Blanche becomes suspicious of Jane's actions. Jane meanwhile is dreaming of a comeback and hires Victor Flagg (Victor Buono) to accompany her and help manage her career. Blanche in the meantime has made it to the phone and calls for help but Jane walks in and catches her. Jane then ties Blanche up and imprisons her in her room. Elvira, sensing trouble forces Jane to open the door to reveal the pathetic Blanche bound up to her bed. This forces Jane to take action and......................................... Davis and Crawford had been rivals since their salad days in the 1930s, when both were major stars. Both were immensely talented but just couldn't get along. Now as both were well into their 50s, they were smart enough to see the value of teaming up for the first time in their long careers. Unfortunately this was the one and only time they did so. Plans to re-team them for "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte) (1964) fell through. Both finished their careers in TV and in "crazy old broad" type pictures. Davis' "The Whales of August" (1987) was an exception. Also in the rather large cast were Marjorie Bennett excellent as Buono's mother Dehlia, John Ford favorite Anna Lee as the next door neighbor Mrs. Bates and Davis' daughter B.D. Merrill as Liza Bates. Too bad she didn't inherit her mother's considerable talent. By God they still had it. Too bad that this was their only collaboration.

In 1917, Baby Jane is a famous, but spoiled child star that performs a show with her father under the jealous look of her sister Blanche. In 1935, Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford) becomes a famous and glamorous actress in Hollywood and the untalented Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) only acts because Blanche forces the producers to give parts to her. One night, they go to a party and there is a car accident. In 1962, Blanche is a crippled woman that has been left wheelchair-bound after the accident that lives with her alcoholic sister Baby Jane in a decaying Hollywood mansion. Baby Jane does not recall the accident since she was drunk and is in absolute control over Blanche that is completely isolated without any contact with the outside world and dumping her correspondence in the trash. As Baby Jane becomes more insane, she decides to return to the stage and hires the idle Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) to play piano. Meanwhile she continues to torment Blanche and her cruelty increases. "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" is one of the greatest American movies ever, with top-notch performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The disturbing story of sibling jealousy, rivalry, malevolence and insanity has a surprising plot point in the end that really surprises. I believe the three lead characters – Baby Jane, Blanche and Edwin Flagg – are a field day for psychologists. My vote is ten. Title (Brazil): "O Que Terá Acontecido com Baby Jane?" ("What Might Have Happened to Baby Jane?")

S P O I L E R S There could be no worse way to envision hell than to actually sit through this overrated, joyless, tedious film. You could age as badly as Bette Davis while waiting for two or three classic campy line readings. Joan Crawford as a spineless pushover is absurd. The arrangement of a Gothic horror house immediately adjacent to a perky, dumb suburban 60s family (with a car port) is just one of the movies off-genre puzzles. Just where one might reasonably expect some denouement, a completely unwelcome sub-plot involving Victor Buono appears, lingers, and doubles the already unbearable running time. This movie is a feat of endurance. Watching it actually is no better than hearing a drag queen repeat it's over-exposed lines for an easy laugh. The bizarre anti-climax in which the two biddies end up on the beach, and Joan dies (apparently of chattiness) is a head-scratcher. The strange, uneven sequel Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte is the better of the two as entertainment.

One of the great movies about the movies, (and great movies about the movies aren't reverential, they bite the hand that feeds them), and the best of Aldrich's 'women's pictures'. Detractors see it as a misogynist load of horse manure about a couple of self-loathing sisters hauled up together in a decaying Hollywood mansion, a too-close-to-home study of the real life rivalry between stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford or even as a veiled study of homosexual self-depreciation with the sisters as ageing drag queens. But these are the very things that make the picture great. It is precisely because it can be read in this way that makes it such a perversely enjoyable, subversive piece of work. As the sisters, Davis and Crawford pull all the stops out and then some. What makes Crawford's performance great is that she is never sympathetic even when Davis is feeding her dead rat or quite literally kicking her when she's down, while Davis is simply astonishing. With her face painted like a hideous Kabuki mask and dressed up like a doll that's filled with maggots it's an unashamedly naked piece of acting, as revealing as her work in "All About Eve" and almost as good. Unfortunately the film's commercial success lead both actresses into a downward spiral of not dissimilar but considerably lack-lustre material. But this bitch-fest is the real McCoy.

In 1917 "Baby Jane" Hudson is an adored vaudevillian child star, while her sister Blanche Hudson lives in Jane's shadow. By 1935, both sisters are movie actors, but their fortunes have reversed: Blanche is a successful film actress, while Jane is forgotten and languishes in little-seen B-movies. One night, an inebriated Jane mocks Blanche at a party, provoking Blanche into running away in tears. That night, Blanche is paralyzed from the waist down in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who is found three days later in a drunken stupor. In 1962 Jane has descended into alcoholism and mental illness, and treats Blanche with cruelty. What happens is a waking nightmare but the ending is more shocking than Bette Davis appearance. Now this film is fun to watch. You need to see this. This was an instant classic upon its release. In 2017 the film returned to public conscienceless because of the Ryan Murphy Mini Series "Feud". That mini series is all about "Betty & Joan". It details the making of this film and all the events that surrounded it.