#63: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

9.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, many times, the first time was probably in high school

BEST SEQUENCE

The final scene at the beach

BEST LINE

"Then, you mean...all this time we could have been friends?"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

92%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? combines powerhouse acting, rich atmosphere, and absorbing melodrama in service of a taut thriller with thought-provoking subtext."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"A former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion."

DIRECTOR

Robert Aldrich

MAIN CAST

Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono

THOUGHTS

• If ever I'm accused of allowing my own personal affection for a movie to inflate the thrill score I give it, it might be for this one. For me, I think Bette Davis's performance as Baby Jane is iconic and it's lodged deep in my brain as one of my favourites of all time. Furthermore, I think of this as one of the quintessential slow-burn movies. It takes some time to get cooking, and it drags a little at points, but the payoff at the end of the movie is so good that I don't mind one bit. It's all part of the journey. If you can't quite click into the movie's pace, or if you think it's more tame than it should be, I'm not going to disagree with you too vehemently. But if you're picking up what this movie's putting down, there aren't many quite like it out there
• As a tale of two aging former movie starlets, it made perfect sense to cast two actual aging former movie starlets in Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. As a story fuelled by jealousy, spite and hatred, it was brilliant to cast two women who actually legitimately hated each other, at least by all accounts that I've read. It's at this point that I'll mention that I haven't seen Feud, the Ryan Murphy TV show which had a season all about the making of Baby Jane, but from what I've read there were some pretty wild behind-the-scenes stories between Davis and Crawford
• Joan Crawford is very good in this as Blanche, and she's wholly convincing as a woman at the mercy of her unhinged sister. By virtue of the story, though, Bette Davis is the one who just gets to swing for the fences and I love it. The venom and malice in her performance, the insane look in her wide eyes, the brusque and harsh way she talks, the way her character basically devolves as the movie progresses, the pathetic way she clings to her former childhood glory, I find it all so effective. And the makeup, which Davis had a lot of control over, does a lot of great work too, as do the costumes. In fact, Baby Jane won the Oscar for Best Costume Design - Black-and-White (back when some categories were divided into Colour and Black-and-White). Seems like makeup wasn't its own category back then, so it might have just been considered along with the costuming
• Other Oscar nominations for Baby Jane that year: Bette Davis for Best Actress, Victor Buono for Best Supporting Actor, Ernest Haller for Black-and-White Cinematography and Joseph D. Kelly for Sound. Costume Design was the only win
• The lighting is also very effective and makes their house look incredibly sinister
• Admittedly, I haven't seen many (possible not any) of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford's earlier films. And while I still think the movie is perfectly effective, I can only imagine that it's even more so for people who are familiar with their previous film careers
• I didn't really love Victor Buono's performance, and his scenes tended to drag, although they did help bring out Jane's crazed obsession with staging a comeback. The scenes when Jane imitated Blanche's voice were also a little corny, although at the same time they hit the uncanny sweet spot of still giving me a little chill to hear a totally different voice combined with Jane's manic glare
• Strong echoes between this movie and Misery, another one of my favourites
• Finally, for some fans of this movie, it's most valued as a camp classic or a dark satire. And while I can see aspects of these views in Bette Davis's scenery chewing or the movie's depiction of aging actresses in Hollywood, I've always taken What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? pretty much at face value as a chilling tale of sibling rivalry and descent into madness. It's still one of my favourites, many viewings later, and if you haven't seen it this is one that I strongly recommend

Up next: Supplementing the list with the spiritual sequel to Baby Jane, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte from 1964

#64: TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

9

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never

BEST SEQUENCE

The scene in which Quinlan (Orson Welles) ties up some loose ends

BEST LINE

• Quinlan: "Come on, read my future for me."
• Tana: "You haven't got any."
• Quinlan: "Hmm? What do you mean?"
• Tana: "Your future's all used up."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

95%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Artistically innovative and emotionally gripping, Orson Welles' classic noir is a visual treat, as well as a dark, sinister thriller."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town."

DIRECTOR

Orson Welles

MAIN CAST

Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh

THOUGHTS

• I haven't seen much of Orson Welles' directorial output; just this and Citizen Kane, which, to be perfectly candid, I found underwhelming when I saw it for the first time just a few short years ago (but I plan on giving it a revisit at some point, maybe it just didn't click with me the first time). Therefore, Touch of Evil is now my favourite Orson Welles movie, and deservedly so - in all its dark twistiness, it's extremely entertaining
• Probably best known for its opening tracking shot depicting a car bomb being planted and following the path of that car until it eventually explodes. Nearly 3 1/2 minutes long and uninterrupted by any cuts, it's a brilliant start to the movie, placing us smack dab in the centre of the action right away. And beyond that great opening, I was pleased to discover that the rest of the movie is equally striking. Full of skewed camera angles, extreme closeups and even more long single-take scenes, the innovative camerawork completely absorbed me into the setting and the story. At times it felt like the camera was dancing with the characters onscreen. The use of light and shadow was also pretty remarkable
• And if this is my favourite movie directed by Orson Welles, it's also my favourite onscreen performance by him. I liked him a lot in The Third Man, making a huge impact with relatively little screen time, but I liked his performance as corrupt cop Hank Quinlan even better. He was completely unafraid to make himself as unappealing as possible, and I'm reminded of the big bags under his beady little eyes and the soggy cigars he smokes throughout the film
• Terrific climax to the movie, too, kept me on the edge of my seat
• Janet Leigh is very good in this movie, and we'll be talking about her again much, much later. When taking into consideration this movie as well as Psycho (which I believe is her only other appearance on the list), we come to realize that she maybe should have tried to stay away from motels
• This movie's reputation is tarnished somewhat by a casting choice which really wouldn't fly in present day. Welles rewrote the movie's protagonist to be Mexican as opposed to the American character found in the source novel. This character, Miguel 'Mike' Vargas, is honest and virtuous, taking on the corrupt, racist, and white American cop, Quinlan. However, while I believe Welles' heart was in the right place to incorporate racial politics into his film, the casting of Charlton Heston under a lot of makeup as Vargas definitely undermines some of the good, at least in viewing the movie through a modern lens
• Tagline, as seen on the poster: "THE STRANGEST VENGEANCE EVER PLANNED!" - maybe the worst tagline of any movie I've reviewed so far?

Up next: And now we pivot to a movie with one of the best taglines I can think of. One of my favourites, from 1962, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? And that tagline? "Sister, sister, oh so fair, why is there blood all over your hair?"