What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film)

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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
144301~What-Ever-Happened-to-Baby-Jane-Posters.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Produced by Robert Aldrich
Screenplay by Lukas Heller
Based on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 
by Henry Farrell
Starring Bette Davis
Joan Crawford
Victor Buono
Music by Frank DeVol
Cinematography Ernest Haller
Editing by Michael Luciano
Studio Seven Arts Productions
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)
  • October 31, 1962 (1962-10-31)
Running time 133 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $1,025,000[2]
Box office $9,000,000[3]

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological thriller[4] film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the novel of the same name by Henry Farrell. 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.

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

Contents

Plot [edit]

The story begins in 1917; Baby Jane Hudson (Julie Allred) is a vaudevillian child star. She performs to adoring crowds and inspires the creation of a rather expensive “Baby Jane” doll. Jane is shown to have become a spoiled brat whose doting stage-father Ray (Dave Willock) gives in to her whims and demands while her disapproving mother and jealous, overlooked sister Blanche (Gina Gillespie) watch from the sidelines.

By 1935, the now grown sisters' roles have been reversed. Both are movie stars, but Blanche is the successful and glamorous one, while Jane’s films have flopped. Unable to establish her talent as an adult actress, Jane has taken to drinking. One night after a party, the car pulls up to the gate of their mansion and the camera shows only the legs of one of the sisters stepping out of the car. The camera then shows the feet of the other sister as the accelerator is pressed. The next scene shows the car smashed into the gate with the hanging mystery of who was who.

The story picks up years later with a wheelchair bound Blanche (Joan Crawford) and a severely aged Jane (Bette Davis) living together. Blanche lives primarily in her bedroom watching her old movies on television and reliving her former career. Jane is an antagonist who fights with her sister constantly, drinks excessively, and wears caked-on makeup in an effort to appear young. Blanche is almost entirely dependent on her bitter, abusive sister save for her friendly relationship with their cleaning woman, Elvira (Maidie Norman). Elvira is concerned for Blanche’s well being at the hands of "crazy" Jane, but Blanche staunchly defends her. Elvira tells Blanche that she has discovered her sister has been opening her mail and dumping it in the trash, but Blanche is slow to condemn her and shows great concern for her sister's welfare.

In her own world, Jane is also reliving her childhood success in a very dark, disturbing manner. She is lost in her memories when she sees her reflection in the mirror and is horrified. At that moment Blanche calls for her sister with annoying, repeated use of a bedside buzzer from her room: She wants to know why she cannot call out on the telephone -- had it been left off the hook downstairs? Jane is highly annoyed with her sister when Blanche informs her she may be selling the house. Jane then fights with her sister, fearing what will become of her, and rips the telephone cord out of the wall, further isolating Blanche in her room. When Jane brings up Blanche's lunch afterwards, Blanche discovers that under the silver serving dish lies her beloved parakeet dead on a bed of tomato slices.

Jane makes herself up to go out and place an advertisement for a piano player so that she can restart her performing career. While she is out, Blanche tries to get the attention of her neighbor, Mrs. Bates (Anna Lee), who is tending to her flowers below Blanche's window. When Blanche cannot get her attention, she writes a note pleading for help and throws it from her window. Unfortunately, Jane returns at that very moment and the distraction of the car coming up the driveway prevents Mrs. Bates from seeing the crumpled paper. Jane does find the note, however, and when she brings Blanche's dinner up, she argues with her sister again, telling her the house is hers and it will never be sold. Jane mocks her sister's kind concern and drops the folded note in her lap. Jane leaves the room, and when Blanche goes to her serving tray for the dinner, she cannot bring herself to touch it.

The next morning when Elvira arrives, Jane tells her she can have the day off. Jane's abuse of Blanche continues and they fight again when she brings Blanche her lunch. Blanche has not touched her dinner from the night before and wants to know why her breakfast had not been brought. Jane responds because she had not eaten her dinner and she herself tauntingly eats from the previous night's plate. As she takes the old serving tray away, she tells her sister they have rats in the basement, and when Blanche goes to consume her lunch, she finds a dead rat on the plate. Blanche screams hysterically and Jane laughs evilly at her sister's despair. Meanwhile, a talented but down-and-out man named Edwin Flagg (Victor Buono) sees Jane's newspaper advertisement and makes an appointment to see her that afternoon.

Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson.

When Edwin shows up at the house, Jane grotesquely performs her signature song from when she was a little girl, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy," with Edwin playing the piano. Edwin tries to hide his disgust. Jane then brags about who she was as a child and shows him a scrapbook of herself. At this time, Blanche uses her buzzer repeatedly to call her sister, wanting to know who the visitor is. Enraged, Jane goes upstairs, confronts Blanche, and consequently rips the buzzer out of the wall and slaps her sister. Back in the living room, Jane and Edwin agree to his salary and they plot the next moves. Jane then drives him home. While she’s out, Blanche goes into Jane's room looking for food (by now, she hasn't eaten in a couple of days) and discovers that Jane has practiced forging her signature and is writing checks under Blanche's name. She works her way down the stairs to use the telephone. Blanche calls Jane’s doctor and tells him that she needs help and asks if he could come to the house right away.

Jane comes back to find Blanche still on the phone, talking to the doctor. Blanche abruptly ends the conversation and tries to make excuses in front of her enraged sister. Jane cruelly beats her as she lies on the floor, kicking her in the head and stomach until she is unconscious. Jane then calls the doctor back and, disguising her voice to sound like Blanche's, tells him not to come because “Jane” has found another doctor. Then Jane drags her sister to her room, ties her up by her arms, gags her, and leaves her there.

The next day, Elvira arrives to see Blanche. Jane tells her that her services are no longer needed and dismisses her. Suspicious, Elvira sneaks into the house when Jane leaves again to go to the bank for money to pay Edwin. She finds Blanche's room locked and is attempting to remove the door from the hinges when Jane comes home and catches her. Upon Elvira's demands, Jane gives her the key, and as the maid enters the darkened room to find Blanche bound and gagged, Jane uses the hammer to kill Elvira. Jane sinks deeper into her delusions about "if only they had loved me enough." Edwin then rings the doorbell, but Jane does not answer, "not now Edwin, not now," and when he leaves, she sobs in despair. She then takes Elvira's body from the house and disposes of it by driving and dropping it some distance away.

Later, the police call the Hudson house and tell Jane that a cousin of her maid has reported her missing. She tells them that she hasn’t seen Elvira for a week. A panicked Jane then prepares to leave with her sister, fearing the police will discover what she’s done. Suddenly, the police show up with a drunken Edwin, there to receive his first payment. While he is there, a weakened Blanche is able to knock over a bedside table in her room, Edwin hears the noise, goes upstairs to investigate, and finds Blanche tied to her bed. He is shocked by her "dying" condition as she begs for his help. Edwin runs out of the house to get away. Desperate, Jane puts her sister in the car and drives to the beach.

The next morning, the search is on for the missing Hudson sisters. Elvira’s body has been found and there are bulletins on the radio. Blanche, starved and dehydrated, is lying on the sand with Jane sitting beside her. Blanche tells Jane the truth about what happened years before. It was she, Blanche, who had tried to run over her drunken sister. Jane, however, had moved out of the way in time and Blanche had slammed into the gate and snapped her own spine, but managed to drag herself out of the car and up to the wrecked gate. Because Jane was too drunk to realize what happened, she has since believed that she was responsible for her sister’s condition. Jane sadly asks, "You mean all this time we could have been friends?" With her mental condition now completely deteriorated, Jane runs off to a beach-side concession booth to get ice cream cones for the two of them. The police arrive and intercept Jane as she is returning to Blanche with the ice cream cones. As a crowd of curious beachgoers begin surrounding her, Jane realizes that she once again has the attention that she’s long craved, and she dances before the onlookers, joyfully happy at last, in her decayed imagination. The police spot a motionless Blanche lying on the sand break through the crowd to help her as Jane continues to dance and the film ends. Whether Blanche has survived is not revealed.

Cast [edit]

Production [edit]

Bette Davis(left) as Baby Jane Hudson and Joan Crawford as her sister, Blanche Hudson

The house used for the 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 final scene on the beach was shot in Malibu, reportedly the same site where Aldrich filmed the final scene of Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

The small role of 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 a very unfavorable light.

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 she had asked Crawford to accept her award if she won. As Crawford walked to the stage, she supposedly stopped at Bette and said: "Sorry, Bette. Excuse me I have an Oscar to accept." She then 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."[5] As both Davis and Crawford had accepted lower salaries in exchange for a share of the film's profits,[6] 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 [edit]

The film's success led to the birth of the "psycho-biddy" sub-genre of horror/thriller films featuring psychotic older women, among them Aldrich's Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte and What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?.

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

Director Walter Hill is planning a new remake for 2012, many suggestions in websites that the film would be starring Glenn Close as Jane and Meryl Streep as Blanche.

Critical reception [edit]

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."[7]

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."[8]

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."[9]

Accolades [edit]

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design.[10]

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

Box office [edit]

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.[3][12]

In the United Kingdom, the film was originally given an X certificate by the BBFC 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.[1] 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.[13]

In popular culture [edit]

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  • 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 then 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 brief spoof, with Allen as Blanche and Nye as Jane.
  • In the 1970's, 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!"[14]
  • 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 become insane.
  • 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."
  • 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-using 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' "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 while 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.[15]

References [edit]

 Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (December 2012)
  1. ^ a b "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (X)". British Board of Film Classification. 1962-11-30. Retrieved 2011-09-09. 
  2. ^ Alain Silver and James Ursini, Whatever Happened to Robert Aldrich?, Limelight, 1995 p 256
  3. ^ a b Box Office Information for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? IMDb. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
  4. ^ allmovie.com
  5. ^ Mother Goddam: The Story of the Career of Bette Davis by Whitney Stine, with a running commentary by Bette Davis, Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1974, ISBN 0-8015-5184-6, pp. 296-297
  6. ^ Ibid p. 307
  7. ^ New York Times review
  8. ^ Variety review
  9. ^ TV Guide review
  10. ^ "The 35th Academy Awards (1963) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-23. 
  11. ^ "Festival de Cannes: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-02-27. 
  12. ^ "All-Time Top Grossers", Variety, 8 January 1964 p 69
  13. ^ "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (12A)". British Board of Film Classification. 2004-08-27. Retrieved 2011-09-09. 
  14. ^ Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim, p. 175
  15. ^ "Baby Jane? @ IMDB". 

External links [edit]

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