What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (film)
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| What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? | |
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| Directed by | Robert Aldrich |
| Written by | Lukas Heller Harry Essex |
| Starring | Bette Davis Joan Crawford Victor Buono |
| Release date(s) | October 26, 1962 |
| Running time | 134 min. |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 Warner Bros. drama/horror/thriller motion picture starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Others in the cast include Victor Buono, Anna Lee, Maidie Norman, Marjorie Bennett, Julie Allred, and Gina Gillespie.
Directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, the script was adapted by Lukas Heller and Harry Essex, based on the novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? by Henry Farrell. Original music was composed by Frank De Vol. Cinematography was by Ernest Haller. Costumes were designed by Norma Koch.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? received the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (Norma Koch). It was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Bette Davis), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Victor Buono), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Ernest Haller) and Best Sound (Joseph D. Kelly) (Seven Arts-Warner Bros. Glen Glenn Sound Department).
It also received Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama (Bette Davis) and Best Supporting Actor (Victor Buono). And it received nominations for the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actress (Joan Crawford) and for Best Foreign Actress (Bette Davis).
The movie began a trend of movies featuring older women in peril, or on the brink of insanity, a genre colloquially referred to as psycho-biddy.
Budget: $980,000
U.S. release: October 26, 1962
134 mins.; black-and-white
[edit] Synopsis
Jane Hudson (played by Allred as a child) was a child star of the vaudeville stage in 1917 who was billed as "Baby Jane." She was a spoiled brat who demanded an ice cream, or else she would not greet her fans. Her father gave in. Her sister, Blanche (played by Gillespie as a child), watched with sadness as Jane, who always got her way, was idolized by her adoring public. Their mother comforted Blanche. She told her older daughter that some day she would become the center of attention and asked her to be kinder to Jane, when that happened, than Jane was to her. With a rather grim expression on her face, Blanche promises that she won't forget.
As they grew up, Blanche Hudson became a famous movie star. Jane could not act and went nowhere in the movie industry. (Interestingly, this is demonstrated in the film with clips from Bette Davis's early films.) Her films are apparently very popular in France, but she wants to succeed in the United States, as Blanche has done. Jane lived with her sister in Blanche's Hollywood home. Jane would get drunk at parties and mimic and mock Blanche, of whom she was jealous. One evening, as they returned home from a party, a horrible car accident occurred with tragic results.
In the aftermath, Blanche was left paralyzed from the waist down. Jane was found drunk by the police in a hotel room the next morning. As she was drunk, she could not remember trying to murder her sister by running her over with their car. After finding out that she attempted to murder Blanche, Jane expressed great guilt and remorse. Blanche allowed her sister to stay on and care for her and her house as a flunky.
The years have passed. Jane (played by Davis), who is completely forgotten by the public, is now a pathetic, grotesque, drunken figure who wears a ton of make-up. She is rude and snubs the neighbor, Mrs. Bates (played by Lee), who asks her to tell Blanche how much she has been enjoying her old movies that are airing on television. Jane hates and resents her sister, as well as the confounded buzzer she uses to summon her.
Blanche (played by Crawford) is an invalid stuck upstairs in her bedroom. The weekly cleaning woman, Elvira Stitt (played by Norman), who is devoted to her employer, Blanche, sees through Jane and tries to get Blanche to have her committed. Blanche calls her lawyer and asks him to sell the house.
Jane eavesdrops on the call. She then comes upstairs where Blanche is sitting in her wheelchair watching one of her movies on TV and abruptly turns off the set. When Blanche tells her she was watching it, Jane angrily asks if she remembers what year she made that picture. When Blanche replies yes and gives more detail, Jane tells her that she made a picture that year too, that it was never even shown in the United States. She says, "The studio was too busy giving a big build-up to that crap you were turning out!" When she asks about the call and gets a reply, she calls Blanche a liar.
The movie turns to horror as Jane begins to grotesquely abuse Blanche. She tears out her buzzer and the phone cord. She then goes downstairs and calls the lawyer. Imitating Blanche's voice, she tells him she has changed her mind about selling the house. She serves disgusting things, such as a dead rat, and gets a big kick out of Blanche's revulsion.
Jane decides to revive her childhood act. She embezzles Blanche's money, cashing forged checks at the bank. She buys more liquor, has replicas made of the costumes she wore in 1917, and places an ad in the paper for a musical accompanist.
While Jane is away, Blanche goes to her room in her wheelchair. She finds a box of chocolates and devours them ravenously. She then sees where Jane has been practicing writing the signature Blanche Hudson and proof that Jane has written checks for cash in Blanche's name. Eventually, she crawls downstairs to call her doctor for help. Jane returns during the call. She then beats and kicks Blanche. Afterward, she calls back and, imitating Blanche's voice, tells the doctor that it was a mistake, that all is fine. She ties Blanche up in bed and begins to starve her to death.
Edwin Flagg (Buono), an unemployed pianist-composer, lives at home with his mother, Dehlia. She finds Jane's ad in the paper and suggests he apply. He is not exactly what Jane imagined, but she hires him. Knowing Jane only as the child vaudeville sensation his mother has told him of, he is not sure she is serious about wanting to revive an antique stage act in modern times, but is drawn to the promise of money.
Elvira comes by, but Jane tells her that Blanche is sleeping and that she is fired. Elvira waits until Jane leaves, then returns to find Blanche's door locked. She is taking off the bolts with a hammer and screwdriver when Jane returns and finds her. Elvira demands the key to the door. Jane finally gives it to her. As she walks in and sees Blanche bound and gagged, Jane picks up the hammer and murders Elvira. She takes away the body in the trunk of the car at night.
In the meantime, Dehlia has recalled the old gossip about the Hudsons. She tells her son the stories of Jane's trying to kill her own sister, but he refuses to believe it. Edwin goes to the Hudson home, but Jane will not answer the door. He takes it as a rebuff and angrily storms away. When a drunken Edwin comes back to confront Jane, she lets him in. While he is there he hears a noise upstairs, as Blanche has managed to turn over her night stand in a cry for help. Against Jane's urgent pleadings, he goes up to Blanche's room. When he sees the skeletal woman bound and gagged, he runs from the house in horror. Jane, realizing the police will be summoned, screams for Blanche to help her. She runs upstairs and gets Blanche.
Driving through Los Angeles at night, they wind up at the beach. As the sun comes up, Jane is sitting beside the ill and dying Blanche, who she has wrapped up in hot blankets. Blanche wants to tell her something about the night she was paralyzed, but Jane will not listen. She begins acting like a child and covers her ears.
Blanche tells her the truth of the dark secret she has kept because of her hatred of Jane. That it was she who had, in fact, tried to run down Jane in front of their house. Jane, too drunk to remember or understand what was happening, ducked out in the nick of time. Blanche's car violently hit the gates, which caused her spine to snap. She then crawled in front of the wrecked vehicle; when the police arrived, they immediately assumed that it was Jane who tried to kill her sister. Blanche never denied it, exploiting her sister's guilt and self loathing all these years.
Jane turns to her and says pitifully, "You mean . . . all this time we could have been friends?"
After a prolonged silence, Jane says, with a childish smile, "do you like ice cream?"
When she goes to get two ice cream cones at the small stand, the police approach her and begin asking where her sister is. Jane, now completely mad, begins to ramble about how she and Blanche are about to become "movie stars," as a curious crowd gathers.
Jane obviously thinks that the shocked on-lookers are her adoring public. She eerily begins to dance around for them on the sand, as she did when she was a child star. The nightmare and the beautiful dream mingle as Jane finally gets the attention she so desperately craved.
[edit] See also
- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1960 novel)
- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991 made-for-TV movie)
