whatever happened to baby jane
This sordid domestic melodrama is generally considered a borderline horror film: thanks to its aura of psychological sadism and its portrait of a demented former child star (Bette Davis) who imprisons and torments her wheelchair-bound sister (Joan Crawford), WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE earns a place in the “Horror of Personality” sub-genre that arose in the wake of PSYCHO (1960). [1]
Baby Jane Hudson (Julie Allred) is a vaudevillian child star. [2]
Davis plays the former child star turned wrinkled hag Jane Hudson, whose sister Blanche (Crawford) eclipsed her star in Hollywood, and has been paying for it ever since. [3]
As an adult, however, Baby Jane was overshadowed by her more talented sister, Blanche, who became a top movie star. [4]
This gothic story deals with two aging sisters, Jane and Blanche Hudson, who are living alone together in a Hollywood mansion. [5]
Both sisters are movie stars but Blanche is the successful and glamorous one, while Jane’s films have flopped. [2]
Then, one night in the early ’30s, came the accident, which crippled Blanche for life and which was blamed on a drunken, jealous Jane. [4]
Blanche who controls the purse strings, tries to talk Jane out of her delusions, but the vengeful Jane takes away her sister’s wheelchair, locks her in her room with nothing to eat but the occasional dead rat, and eventually ties her to the bed. [1]
The movie is overly long and the pace is uneven. [6]
One of the blackest comedies ever made, this 1962 thriller rejuvenated the careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and played heavily on their own Hollywood legends, incorporating film clips from their earlier stardom to add depth and realism to a severely twisted tale of sibling rivalry. [3]
Joan plays Blanche Hudson, the sister of Jane Hudson, played by Bette Davis. [7]
She even tells Blanche that her sister has been opening her mail and dumping it in the trash. [2]
And Bette Davis delivers an astonishingly courageous performance as a drunken, grotesque, former child star falling into madness, hiding nothing from a pitiless camera. [6]
Flash-forward to 1962: Jane (Bette Davis), decked out in garish chalk-white makeup, still lives with the invalid Blanche (Joan Crawford) in their decaying L.A. mansion. [8]
Jane resents having to live in the shadow of her sister, who became more famous than she ever was, and who is now being remembered because of a revival of her films on television. [5]
Sources:
[1] Hollywood Gothique: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Review
[2] The Terror Trap: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
[3] What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?: Special Edition (1962)
[4] What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: Information from Answers.com
[5] What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (film) - Wikipedia, the free …
[6] Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Movie Review - Bette Davis in …
[7] Joan Crawford Films @ Classic Movie Favorites - What Ever …
[8] What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?