Canción de cuna para un cadáver

Following soon after "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", I originally thought that "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" would be a letdown - far from it, in my opinion, much better due a great deal to the cast of great actors and actresses. Bette Davis was in her element in this role of Charlotte, while Olivia de Havilland in the role originally planned for Joan Crawford was superb, and was an inspired piece of accidental casting! Agnes Moorehead deserved her Academy nomination, while Mary Astor was a most welcome sight. Joseph Cotten normally seems very wooden in his parts, but does an excellent job here. The Black and White photography adds a great deal to the mood, and is far better than Colour would have been. The ending was very well planned and carried out, and you feel after the film ends there is something else that happened that the viewer never saw. Get it on Video - it is well worth the experience.

Following the success of camp classic 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?' (1962), producer/director Robert Aldrich once again cast Bette Davis in the lead for his follow up 'Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte', this time with Olivia De Havilland as her co-star. One might expect this to be an inferior imitation of Baby Jane, repeating that film's formula of outlandish melodrama and twisted characters, but although it does share some similarities with its predecessor (most notably, Davis's eccentric performance), I consider it to be the superior film, a gripping murder mystery that serves up a large helping of Southern gothic, grand guignol, and the macabre.

The film opens in 1927, at the antebellum mansion of the Hollis family, where patriarch Big Sam (Victor Buono) confronts John Mayhew (Bruce Dern), the married lover of his daughter Charlotte, and orders him to end the relationship. The next evening, during a party at the Hollis house, John meets Charlotte in the summerhouse and tells her that he no longer loves her; distraught, Charlotte runs away. Moments later, John is brutally murdered, his hand and head hacked off with a meat cleaver (this scene being surprisingly gory). Wandering into the party covered in blood and in a state of shock, Charlotte is ushered away by her father.

37 years later, Charlotte (Davis) still lives in the mansion, her father having used his connections to prevent his daughter from being charged or tried. The only other occupant is Velma the housekeeper (a wonderfully unconventional turn by Agnes Moorehead), but this all changes when Charlotte writes to her cousin Miriam (de Havilland), hoping that she can somehow prevent The Louisiana Highway Commission from evicting her from her home. Miriam comes to the house soon after, but helping Charlotte couldn't be further from her mind: with the help of old friend Drew (Joseph Cotten), she intends to push the already mentally fragile woman over the edge and have her certified insane so that she will gain control of the family fortune.

While perhaps not as iconic as Baby Jane, 'Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte' trounces that film's tale of bitter sibling rivalry with its engrossing mystery that, while not always unpredictable, provides bags of atmosphere, lots of suspense, and plenty of opportunity for Davis to do her demented thang. It also neatly switches things around at the halfway point, allowing De Havilland her chance to act deranged, the seemingly sweet Miriam proving to be just as nutty as her cousin. Also a delight to behold: Cecil Kellaway as insurance investigator Harry, who ties up the loose ends nicely.

Like Baby Jane, Sweet Charlotte is perhaps a little overlong for this kind of thing (under two hours would have been nice), but Aldrich maintains a steady pace, and the game cast (which includes silent movie star Mary Astor, as John's widow, and disaster movie regular George Kennedy as the foreman of the crew come to flatten Charloote's home) ensures that there is rarely a dull moment.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

This film was meant to be a kind of sequel to "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?". However, this film is missing the dynamic of those dueling actresses, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, present in the first film. Instead we have the perennial sweet thing of the golden age of Hollywood, Olivia de Havilland, playing opposite to Bette Davis. Plus Olivia and Bette were always friendly in spite of both being very ambitious at the same time and the same place - Warner Brothers of the 1930s and 40s.

As a teenager Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) was presumed guilty of killing her married lover. And no wonder, she wanders into the family mansion during a society ball the night the man was killed covered in blood and in shock. Her wealthy father managed to fix it so she never faced charges, but Charlotte has lived as a recluse ever since, always presumed guilty by her neighbors and the press, and therefore shunned for the past 37 years.

She is facing eviction from the family plantation since her property is in the path of a new road that is being built. Her cousin Miriam Deering (Olivia de Havilland) comes to visit during this time to try and get her to come to terms with moving. With Mary Astor as Jewel Mayhew, the widow of the murdered man, and Agnes Moorhead as the housekeeper.

Charlotte's problem besides being evicted? She has been receiving anonymous mail for years tormenting her about the killing and she is starting to see things that are not there. Or are they?

I actually liked this film better than "Baby Jane" because I always felt that film was too long and too claustrophobic. Plus for once I liked the production code ending, the twist at the end, and justice like it was out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.

It's tough to beat this for a good, deep cast: Bette Davsi, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorhead, Cecil Kellaway, Victor Buono, Mary Astor and Bruce Dern.

My favorite character in here was played by Moorhead. She was excellent as the eccentric (but very perceptive) housekeeper. I wish Kellaway's role had been bigger. It was interesting, too, to see such a young Dern. Davis looked really grotesque, but that was the idea. Kudos for her to not care about her looks.

Speaking of looks, the best feature in here might have been the cinematography. I have not seen this on DVD but I'd like to and wonder if it looks tremendous. It sure looked good on VHS. And that theme song! It is played throughout the movie and once you hear it, as I first did in the theater over 40 years ago, you never forget it.

My lone complaint is the length of the film. At 133 minutes, I think it would have been a lot tighter and better at about 110. However, even though there were definite lulls in the story, they were never that long in length.

A few years before this film came out Bette Davis penned her first set of memoirs, The Lonely Life. She might well have been setting the stage for this film, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Bette is a lonely old spinster woman who back in the day was set to run off with married lover Bruce Dern. Bette's father wouldn't hear of it and paid Dern off. But he wanted Dern to keep a scheduled rendezvous with Davis's character. In keeping that rendezvous Dern was done in with a well wielded meat cleaver.

She's lived in that old mansion, quite a showplace during her youth, for 40 years with only Agnes Moorehead her maid for company. Of course she was suspected in Dern's murder and a whole lot of legends have grown up about her as she's grown older.

People are terrified of who they believe is their own southern fried incarnation of Lizzie Borden. But during the film Bette is more put upon than anything else by some rather unscrupulous people.

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte is Davis's obligato to her well received Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. She's joined in this film by former work colleagues, Olivia DeHavilland, Joseph Cotten, and Victor Buono.

Olivia's quite a wonder in this. She substituted for Joan Crawford who after the well publicized battles during Whatever Happened to Baby Jane decided she wasn't up to rematch. DeHavilland and Davis were old friends from Warner Brothers. And those of us who remember Olivia from her salad days at Warner Brothers will not be used to seeing her in the kind of role she has her.

Both Charlotte and Baby Jane were well done horror flicks. Unfortunately for Bette some of the later ones she chose weren't quite so good and didn't add anything to her reputation.