Qu'est-il arrivé à Baby Jane?

Ryan Murphy's series "Feud" in which Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon play Joan Crawford and Bette Davis at the time of Baby Jane and beyond. I got so engrossed the series that I had to see What Ever Happened To Baby Jane again. Wow! Now, it all feels slightly different, less campy more poignant. Joan Crawford as played by Jessica Lange - the best performance by an actress in many, many years - is a totally recognizable person, crazy or not. When George Cukor tries to convince Joan not to be so vindictive "you're better than this Joan" to what Crawford/Lange replies: "No George, I'm not" Fantastic! Like another user already mention, I agree What Ever Happened To Baby Jane and Feud will be feeding each other keeping each other alive for generations to come.

"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" is a most unusual and impressive thriller. Director Robert Aldrich achieves a fantastic sordid and dark atmosphere at the Huadson sisters mansion -where most of the action takes place- with an unusual black and white shooting for the early 60's. An interesting story, a well delivered screenplay and an accurate musical score also rise the film high.

But the main credit of the picture is casting together to real big names in Hollywood's history, not at their peak then but always reliable and attractive to see. Bette Davis (Jane) takes the most interesting character as the former child star that couldn't make it as an adult in show business so she has gone insane and keeps behaving as the spoiled child he was. She looks grotesque and ridiculous in her child outfits, hairdo and heavy make up. Davis is outstanding in her role and looks really mean when she tortures both mentally and physically her sister Blanche, delicate and reasonable. Joan Crawford plays Blanche and very well too, a former big star whose career ended after a strange car accident that put her on a wheel chair for life.

In the end things are not completely as they seem but the final twist is not what makes this film an extremely good one; it's the strange relationship between the sisters, that requires of that final twist to understand Blanche's tolerant conduct towards her sister.

The movie is perhaps a little too long and it would probably have been even better with a 10 minutes cut. But no doubt this is a top product in its genre and a great movie indeed.

Two grand actresses, Bette and Joan, have their final screen showdown as--what else--retired show biz siblings. Bette's character achieves success early in vaudeville as Baby Jane Hudson, a child actress with a tendency for temper tantrums. As an adult Joan achieves tremendous success as film actress Blanche Hudson. Jane, however, is a horrendous actress, though Blanche makes sure that for every N pictures she makes, that Jane is featured in a film. If you look hard, you'll recognize the scenes from "Parachute Jumper" that the 30s studio execs are roasting in regards to Jane's performance.

A touch of Norma Desmond/Sunset Boulevard here--Bette as a delusional has-been who actually believes her career can be resurrected. Joan as the sister confined to a wheelchair as a result of a horrific car accident. In the drive-way. Supposedly run over by Baby Jane in the 1930s but never proven or prosecuted.

Fast forward to the 1960s, and Baby Jane takes it hard upon learning Blanche plans to sell their old stately mansion. She begins a systematic torture of Blanche that amounts to elder abuse in today's terms. Viewers who saw this film 60 years ago were frightened by the hair-raising dinner entrees given to Blanche: Her dead pet bird served up on a tray of tomatoes and the rat well-done. What doesn't hold up is Blanche's inability to bring attention to her imprisonment. For instance, her neighbor is outside below her window cutting flowers. Instead of screaming like a maniac for help, she writes a complicated note on a typewriter, balls it up, and throws it out the window. Of course, Baby Jane finds it. Duh. When the affected Victor Buono visits the house as a loony piano accompanist for Blanche, she could have screamed and yelled for help. She doesn't.

For all their competition, both Bette and Joan are good here and the ending is extremely ironic. Davis always claimed that Joan campaigned against her at Oscar time and that is why she didn't win. Davis certainly hadn't lost her willingness to look as unattractive as she needed to be in order to play the part. Overweight, dressed up like she is 10 not 55 with her hair in blonde curls and grotesque pancake makeup on, she is the ideal aged homicidal maniac of a Baby Jane doll. Joan's part requires much more subtlety to the point of not doing what she must to save herself. These two definitely make it a worthwhile watch.

Interesting, to see comments dismissing WEHTBJ? as a "gay" film, or "cult" film, etc.

As a writer/producer who lived and worked in Hollywood for 30 years, I submit that those comments represent a "denial syndrome" of people who are ignorant of the facts of Hollywood.

What is so "horrifying" about WEHTBJ? is that the film is an utterly realistic psychodrama about two specific sisters of that era.

It's easy to say that Bette Davis' performance/makeup was "over the top," except that they weren't. In fact, I thought her look was taken from a sad "street person" in Hollywood who, in her seventies, walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard in a pink ball-gown and dead blonde wig and thick makeup, speaking into a transistor radio she held to her ear -- in the 60s, long before cell phones -- "talking" to the FBI about people chasing her.

Perhaps those who've spent their lives elsewhere, other than in Hollywood, feel that the characters in WEHTBJ? are "over the top." But they're not.

That's what makes them so heartbreaking. And the incredibly brave performances by Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Victor Bono and the rest -- not to mention the script and Robert Aldrich's direction -- make this simply the most definitive "Hollywood" psycho-thriller since "Sunset Boulevard."

There's "A Star Is Born," in any of its incarnations. Which is also "true" in its (their) way.

And there is "Sunset Boulevard" and "Baby Jane," which are even more true, and more brilliantly made.

These are not "horror films." They are riveting psychological studies, cast with astonishing actors, and magnificently directed and photographed.

They are the equivalent of Hitchcock's "Psycho," IMHO, which was preceeded by "Sunset Boulevard" and followed by "Baby Jane."

Each different, each brilliant, each marked by some of the most indelible performances ever captured on film.

It's typical of adolescents to make a "joke" about things that make them uncomfortable.

But when experience and age acquaint one with people like Baby Jane and Norma Desmond and, yes, Norman Bates, what's the point of joking?

These three films will tell those characters' stories forever, and better than 99% of films ever made.

That's why they're classics.

I don't think I walked into this one with the right set of expectations. I expected a low-fi, creepy bit of occult-tinted fun from an age before horror films were bloated, over-done sacks of crap, and what I got was much different. I wouldn't really say this is a straight horror movie like Psycho or The Birds, as it unfolds itself like a riveting drama of two sisters instead. The acting is phenomenal, though, at least from our two lead characters, and the way they play off each other is just fantastic. This one takes a while to get going, but once it does, you are in for a high-octane, creepy thrill ride. Recommended to fans of older horror/suspense type movies.