What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological thriller film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford about an actress who holds her crippled sister captive to get people to idolize her. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Henry Farrell. Upon the film's release, it was met with widespread critical and box office acclaim, and was later nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design, Black and White.

The notoriously bitter Hollywood rivalry between the film's two stars was heavily important to the film's immense popularity at the time. This in part led to the revitalization of the then-waning careers of former Hollywood acting legends, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. In the years after the film's release, critics continued to acclaim the film for its psychologically driven black comedy, camp, and creation of the Hag horror subgenre. Because of the film's then unheard of and controversial plot (it originally received an X rating in the UK), and the appeal of the film's stars, it has become a cult film, and continues to play as a Midnight movie. In 2003, the character of Baby Jane Hudson was ranked #44 on the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Villains of American Cinema.

Plot

In 1917, Baby Jane Hudson is a vaudevillian child star while her sister Blanche Hudson is overlooked. By 1935, both sisters are movie actors, but Blanche has achieved stardom, while Jane’s films have flopped, leading Jane to drink heavily. One night, returning from a party, the two get into a car accident which leaves Blanche paralyzed.

In 1962, a wheelchair-bound Blanche (Joan Crawford) and a severely aged Jane (Bette Davis) are living together in a mansion, though Blanche is unable to leave her bedroom. She befriends her cleaning woman, Elvira (Maidie Norman). Elvira, concerned for Blanche's well-being, believes that Jane is exhibiting symptoms of mental illness, but Blanche defends her. Later, Jane is annoyed when Blanche informs her she may be selling the house and Jane rips the telephone cord from the wall, cutting Blanche off, and kills Blanche's pet parakeet.

When Jane leaves the house, Blanche tries to get the attention of her neighbor, Mrs. Bates (Anna Lee) and writes a note pleading for help, throwing it from her window. Jane returns and prevents Mrs. Bates from seeing it. Upon Jane's reading the note, the two quarrel again.

Jane begins to taunt Blanche over her meals and sends Elvira away. Meanwhile, Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) sees Jane's newspaper advertisement for a piano player and arrives at the mansion. Jane hires Edwin and as she drives him home, Blanche searches the house for food and discovers Jane’s forgeries of her signature on checks. She calls their doctor, but Jane returns and beats Blanche into unconsciousness before imitating her voice and telling the doctor not to come. She ties Blanche to her bed. Elvira comes the next day and discovers Blanche in a weakened and starved state, but Jane kills her before she can escape and leaves the body far off.

A week later, the police call the Hudson house and tell Jane that a cousin of her maid reported her missing. Panicking, Jane prepares to leave with her sister, but Edwin hears a noise in Blanche’s room and finds her. He runs away and Jane drives Blanche to the beach. The discovery of Elvira’s body is announced and Blanche confesses that she tried to run Jane over, but missed, resulting in her paralysis. Jane had been too drunk to remember what had happened and blamed herself after the accident. Jane responds pensively, "All this time we could have been friends." The police arrive and as they go toward Blanche, Jane dances before the onlookers, believing she is finally receiving the attention she so desired. Whether Blanche has survived is not revealed.

Cast

• Bette Davis as Jane Hudson
• Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson
• Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg
• Maidie Norman as Elvira Stitt
• Anna Lee as Mrs. Bates
• B.D. Merrill as Liza Bates
• Marjorie Bennett as Dehlia Flagg
• Dave Willock as Ray Hudson
• Julie Allred as young Jane
• Gina Gillespie as young Blanche
• Debbie Burton as young Jane's singing voice

Production

The house exterior of the Hudson mansion is located at 172 South McCadden Place in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles. Other residential exteriors show cottages on DeLongpre Ave. near Harvard Ave. in Hollywood without their current gated courtyards. The scene on the beach was shot in Malibu, reportedly the same site where Aldrich filmed the final scene of Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

The neighbor's daughter was played by Davis' daughter B.D. Merrill who, following in the footsteps of Crawford's daughter Christina, later wrote a memoir that depicted her mother in an unfavorable light.

It was an open secret that Davis and Crawford loathed each other, and filming was contentious as their real-life hatred for one another spilled over into the production, and even after filming had wrapped. At Oscar time, Crawford was infuriated when Davis was nominated for an Oscar and she was overlooked. She contacted the Best Actress nominees who were unable to attend the ceremonies and offered to accept the award on their behalf should they win. Davis claimed that Crawford lobbied against her among Academy voters. When Anne Bancroft was declared the winner for The Miracle Worker, she was in New York performing in a play, and had asked Crawford to accept her award if she won. Crawford triumphantly swept onstage to pick up the trophy. Davis later commented, "It would have meant a million more dollars to our film if I had won. Joan was thrilled I hadn't." As both Davis and Crawford had accepted lower salaries in exchange for a share of the film's profits, Davis considered it especially foolish of Crawford to have worked against their common interests, especially at a time when roles for actresses of their generation were hard to find.

Legacy

The film's success led to the birth of the "psycho-biddy" subgenre of horror/thriller films featuring psychotic older women, among them Aldrich's Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte and What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?. It was parodied by the Italian comedy film What Ever Happened to Baby Toto?.

The film was remade in 1991 as a television film starring real-life sisters Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave.

Critical reception

The film received positive reviews and elicited mixed responses over the Davis/Crawford combination. In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther observed, "[Davis and Crawford] do get off some amusing and eventually blood-chilling displays of screaming sororal hatred and general monstrousness ... The feeble attempts that Mr. Aldrich has made to suggest the irony of two once idolized and wealthy females living in such depravity, and the pathos of their deep-seated envy having brought them to this, wash out very quickly under the flood of sheer grotesquerie."

Variety stated, "Although the results heavily favor Davis (and she earns the credit), it should be recognized that the plot, of necessity, allows her to run unfettered through all the stages of oncoming insanity ... Crawford gives a quiet, remarkably fine interpretation of the crippled Blanche, held in emotionally by the nature and temperament of the role."

TV Guide awarded the film four stars, calling it "Star wars, trenchantly served" and adding, "If it sometimes looks like a poisonous senior citizen show with over-the-top spoiled ham, just try to look away ... As in the best Hitchcock movies, suspense, rather than actual mayhem, drives the film."

The film maintains a 91% rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, indicating critical acclaim.

Accolades

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design.

• Academy Award for Best Actress (Bette Davis, nominee)
• Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Victor Buono, nominee)
• Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black and White (Norma Koch, winner)
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black and White (nominee)
• Academy Award for Best Sound (Joseph D. Kelly, nominee)

• BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress (Crawford, nominee)
• BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress (Davis, nominee)

• Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama (Davis, nominee)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture (Buono, nominee)

• Laurel Award for Golden Laurel for Sleeper of the Year (Winner)

• Golden Palm - 1963 Cannes Film Festival (nominee)

Box office

The film was a surprise box office hit, grossing $9 million at the worldwide box office and $4,050,000 in theatrical rentals in North America.

In the United Kingdom, the film was originally given an X certificate by the BFC in 1962, with a few minor cuts. These cuts were waived for a video submission, which was given an 18 certificate in 1988, meaning no-one under 18 years of age could purchase a copy of the film. However in 2004, the film was re-submitted for a theatrical re-release, and it was given a 12A certificate, now meaning persons under 12 years of age could view it if accompanied by an adult. It remains at this category.

In popular culture

• One of the Alice Cooper band's all-time favorite movies was this one. "In the movie, Bette wears disgusting caked makeup smeared on her face and underneath her eyes, with deep, dark, black eyeliner."
• On an episode of The Andy Williams Show that aired on December 20, 1962, Bette Davis presented host Andy Williams with a "Baby Jane" doll and sang a rock 'n' roll version of the song "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"
• On Steve Allen's Westinghouse network talk show, he and Louis Nye performed a spoof, "Whatever Happened to Baby Fink?" with Allen as Blanche and Nye as Jane.
• In the 1970s, TV's Little House on the Prairie aired an episode in which Nellie feigns being crippled for attention. Writes actress Alison Arngrim: "The imagery is unmistakable: the blond curls, the bitchy attitude versus the poor put-upon girl with the long brown hair. But now there's a twist... Blanche has finally put Jane in the wheelchair!"
• A 1980 SCTV skit features Martin Short as Ed Grimley and John Candy in a parody called 'What Ever Happened to Baby Ed?' in which Ed Grimley is the male version of 'Blanche' and John Candy is the male version of 'Jane'.
• The 1990 series of French and Saunders featured a parody called "Whatever Happened to Baby Dawn?", with Dawn French in the "Jane" role and Jennifer Saunders as Blanche.
• A Batman villain who first appeared in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series is inspired by this film. The villain, Baby Doll, is a former child actor who has since gone insane.
• An Law and Order SVU episode titled "Disabled" was heavily inspired by the movie. The episode guess stared Jill Scott
• In an episode of Seinfeld, "The Airport" (1992), George Costanza mimics a line from the movie when taunting an escorted prisoner in shackles: "But you are, Blanche... you are in the shackles."
• In an episode of The Nanny, "Hurricane Fran," Niles torments C.C. Babcock who is in a wheelchair after slipping and falling. C.C. tells Niles, "You wouldn't be able to torture me like this if I wasn't in this chair." Niles quickly quips back, "But you are Babs, you are."
• The music video to Shakespear's Sister's 1991 single "Goodbye Cruel World" parodies the film (along with Sunset Boulevard) and features a short dialogue scene at the start with Siobhan Fahey in the Jane role and Marcella Detroit in the Blanche role.
• In 2000, one episode of The WB's Popular parodied the rat dinner scene twice; the first time, Sam McPherson portrayed Jane and the second time, Brooke McQueen portrayed Jane.
• In Christina Aguilera's music video for "Ain't No Other Man", released in 2006 on her album Back to Basics, she plays her alter ego, "Baby Jane", in reference to the film.
• The film is referenced in The Simpsons episode "Smart and Smarter", in the scene featuring Lisa's nightmare of her pushing a wheelchair-bound Maggie down the stairs; in another episode, Comic Book Guy remarks of Agnes Skinner: "Now I know whatever happened to Baby Jane".
• The Designing Women episode "The Strange Case of Clarence and Anita" (first aired November 4, 1991), Julia and Mary-Jo are in the play, "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" with Julia (Dixie Carter) as Blanche and Mary Jo (Annie Potts) as Jane.
• In the video game Bioshock, one model of the enemies encountered by the hero is known as the Baby Jane.
• In 2007, Minneapolis-based DJ and music producer, Joel Dickinson remixed Bette Davis's "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" for club play. It has been played by world-famous DJ's including Junior Vasquez and remains a Halloween club favorite internationally.
• The film, particularly the scene when Jane sings "Daddy" grotesquely as Edwin plays the piano, plays in the background during the movie theater scene of the 2005 horror film House of Wax.
• The Doctor Who spinoff show The Sarah Jane Adventures had an episode titled "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?"
• In 2010, a campy remake Baby Jane? was released with drag superstars Matthew Martin as Jane and J. Conrad Frank as Blanche.
• In 2012, the eighth episode of 666 Park Avenue was titled "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

References

External links

• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at the American Film Institute Catalog
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at the Internet Movie Database
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at AllMovie
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at Rotten Tomatoes