Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte

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.

What an entertaining movie! It's the Southern setting that gives the film its potent flavor, with that overwrought plantation house, the Southern accents, the small town gossip, antebellum attitudes, and the music at the party in 1927. The script's dialogue also reflects this Southern tint. Mournfully reflecting on the past, Sam Hollis (Victor Buono) says near the beginning: "My daddy sat out there on that veranda; let this whole place slide to dust; when he died there was nothing but debts and dirt; I touched that dirt and made it blossom".

The story's theme is a preoccupation with the past, with ghosts not properly buried, and with family secrets, repression, and subterfuge. Charlotte (Bette Davis) is a pitiful woman because she is not rational. Like her daddy, she can't let go of the past. Living all alone in that big house with just her housekeeper Velma (Agnes Moorehead), Charlotte obsesses about bygone days. But if her own delusions contribute to her misery, she at least has the presence of mind to understand that those who come to visit her may not have her best interests in mind, hence the story's conflict as she attempts to fight back.

All of the major roles are ideally cast. I would not have made a single change in casting. Acting trends a tad melodramatic at times, but that's part of the fun. Agnes Moorehead gives one of the great supporting performances of all time. And Olivia de Havilland, with her vocal inflections, shrewd smile and stylish behavior, adds elegance that contrasts nicely with the shabby and humorously uncultured Velma.

B&W cinematography also contributes to the film's high quality. Dramatic lighting, interesting overhead camera angles, lots of interior shadows, and quick zoom-ins all add visual interest.

Plot structure is okay, but the runtime is a bit lengthy. I wish they had edited out some of the campy scenes in the second half.

"Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte" is a grand movie, with grand actors and grand moments. The story contains mystery, spine-tingling suspense, and it veritably drips with Southern angst. Though the film is a tad campy in a few spots and is a bit long, nevertheless it's wonderfully entertaining.

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.

John Mayhew (Bruce Dern), a married man, is having an affair with Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis). When Charlotte's father, Sam (Victor Buono), a local bigwig (the town is even named after the family) finds out that John was planning on eloping with Charlotte, he demands that John tells Charlotte during a big party that he's breaking off their relationship. John ends up dead, and Charlotte is the likely suspect. Thirty-seven years later, Charlotte is still living as a recluse on her family's plantation, but now she is being forced to move, as a highway is going to be built across her property. Gradually, people come back into her life to ostensibly help her.

For at least the first 45 minutes to an hour or so into the film, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a 10 out of 10. Unfortunately, given a 133-minute running time, director Robert Aldrich can't sustain the intensity for the length of the film, but Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte finishes as an 8 out of 10 for me.

Although there are some thriller and horror elements, both take up relatively little screen time. At that though, these elements are extremely effective. Some parts are surprisingly graphic for 1964--just enough to be a surprise and evoke the appropriate sense of shock. The best horror/thriller material in the film is in the haunted house vein, and for a time, we wonder if Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte is going to end up being a ghost story.

But the focus here is primarily on Charlotte and Miriam Deering (Olivia de Havilland) and their relationship to one another. Davis and de Havilland are both incredible in the film, and both go through a very wide range of emotions. Oddly, Agnes Moorehead (as Velma Cruther) was more recognized for her performance than the rest of the cast in terms of awards and nominations, with de Havilland receiving neither. Not that Moorehead wasn't good, but in my view, she wasn't the standout performance. However, that's just further fuel for my belief that the Academy Awards have little to do with rewarding the best films, actors and filmmakers.

There are also broader themes explored as a subtext, including the changing way of life in the southern United States between the early and mid-20th Century.

I subtracted two points because the film lost a bit of its momentum and direction in the middle, but the last half-hour is as exciting as the beginning.

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.