What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Reviews

• Excellent Comeback for Both Stars!

  bsmith55522017-04-11

  It is well documented the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, to put it mildly, didn't like each other very much. But to their credit, they saw the advantage of teaming up in a bizarre horror film that would revive their ebbing careers. That film was "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" In 1917 Baby Jane Hudson is a big star in vaudeville with her father. Her sister Blanche is envious of her success and vows to be more famous some day. Fast forward to 1935 and Blanche has turned into Joan Crawford and Baby Jane, Bette Davis. Blanche has become a successful movie star while Jane's career has floundered. A tragic accident causes Blanche to become paralyzed and Jane to become her full time caregiver. The rivalry between the two carries on. Both are immersed in their past successes however, Jane has begun to lose it. She continually harasses Blanche to the point of serving up bizarre meals to force Blanche to stop eating. Blanche is prevented in calling for help by the ever increasingly paranoid Jane. Housemaid Elvira Stitt (Maidie Norman), sympathetic to Blanche becomes suspicious of Jane's actions. Jane meanwhile is dreaming of a comeback and hires Victor Flagg (Victor Buono) to accompany her and help manage her career. Blanche in the meantime has made it to the phone and calls for help but Jane walks in and catches her. Jane then ties Blanche up and imprisons her in her room. Elvira, sensing trouble forces Jane to open the door to reveal the pathetic Blanche bound up to her bed. This forces Jane to take action and......................................... Davis and Crawford had been rivals since their salad days in the 1930s, when both were major stars. Both were immensely talented but just couldn't get along. Now as both were well into their 50s, they were smart enough to see the value of teaming up for the first time in their long careers. Unfortunately this was the one and only time they did so. Plans to re-team them for "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte) (1964) fell through. Both finished their careers in TV and in "crazy old broad" type pictures. Davis' "The Whales of August" (1987) was an exception. Also in the rather large cast were Marjorie Bennett excellent as Buono's mother Dehlia, John Ford favorite Anna Lee as the next door neighbor Mrs. Bates and Davis' daughter B.D. Merrill as Liza Bates. Too bad she didn't inherit her mother's considerable talent. By God they still had it. Too bad that this was their only collaboration.

• Feud or Baby Jane's Next Chapter

  ggallegosgroupuk2017-04-19

  I'm so engrossed in the Ryan Murphy's series "Feud" that watching again "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane" was unavoidable. "Feud" works on so many levels and the performances are so spot on that I suspect What Ever Happened To Baby Jane will have another life and in this new reincarnation it will teach us something important about Hollywood, about acting, about fame and about the fragility of the human mind. All this in great part due to "Feud" Jessica Lange's performance as Joan Crawford is already, for me, in a pantheon of its own. There is not a moment in which the illusion falters and this is more true episode after episode. Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis is also superb but her character is the more educated, stronger. A Yankee. So she provokes a very different kind of emotion. To all fans of the actresses and of Baby Jane you can't afford to miss "Feud" and, please, give it a couple of episodes to adjust but once you get to the third episode "Mommie Dearest" you'll be hooked in the greatest possible way. Enjoy.

• The Resurrection Of The Hudson Sisters

  terencebells2017-04-21

  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.

• Baby Jane 2017 a whole other story

  janiceferrero2017-07-23

  I've always being a fan of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane. I saw it for the first time as a teenager and Bette and Joan became my obsession. I tried to see everything they had done and did I? All About Eve, The Little Foxes, Now Voyager as well as Mildred Pierce, Humoresque. I warmed up quicker to Bette. Her horrible women were priceless and she was fearless. Joan Crawford kept me at a distance, I think the cosmetics got in the way. But now, watching Baby Jane in 2017 - thanks to the amazing Ryan Murphy series "Feud" - I saw a very different Crawford and her performance has grown in scope and depth. I know I shall see this film again. Fascinating to realize there is still so much to discover.

• Those Hudson Sisters

  bkoganbing2010-04-30

  Not that this film isn't good, it's very good in a ghoulish sort of way. But the miracle is that it got made at all. Was director Robert Aldrich really a director here or more of a referee. In any event Aldrich in directing Whatever Happened To Baby Jane took a pair of screen legends whose well known and public loathing for each other and managed without being killed to fashion a film about a pair of has been performers who live in the same house with their memories, their problems and mutual hatreds. Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson was a child vaudeville performer who like so many child stars was a has been when she became a teen. Not to worry about income because when she became a teen, her younger sister Blanche played by Joan Crawford then became the family breadwinner. But that came to an end when she was crippled in a car crash and it was widely believed that her sister had deliberately used the car as a weapon of jealousy. So these two with everything and yet nothing in common are bound to the family house and each other. Crawford a prisoner in her wheelchair and Davis a prisoner of her own fantasies as she retreats gradually into her childhood and glory days. Crawford is seeing how Davis is becoming more and more unhinged and decides to sell the family estate and get Davis into the 1962 equivalent of Happydale. But Davis gets wind of the plan and she makes Crawford a prisoner in her own home and eventually Davis just loses it totally. The wrap up of shooting must have been a day celebrated by Robert Aldrich on each anniversary the rest of his life. But he got himself a film that's as fascinating as a bloody 20 car pile up on the Interstate. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane got an Oscar for costume design for a black and white film and four other nominations. One of those nominations was for Best Actress, a then record 10 of them for Bette Davis in the title role. Bette Davis was an actress who could make some mediocre films entertaining when she took the brakes off. Here the role called for the most outrageous kind of overacting and Bette made the most of it. Joan's more subdued role of the victim in this film, good as she was didn't have a chance next to Bette's for recognition. Of course Crawford legendarily took a perverse pleasure in being the honorary acceptor for Anne Bancroft when she won the Oscar for Best Actress for The Miracle Worker in 1962. Truth be told Anne was the Best Actress that year. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane is such a two woman film that the rest of the cast is just left in the dust. Another miracle occurred when Victor Buono received some recognition with a nomination for Best Supporting Actor as the mother fixated pianist who plays along with Bette Davis when she decides to revive her career. Of course the strange noises and doings in that house eventually creep him out. Buono's scenes are all with Davis and with the scene stealing Marjorie Bennett who's kind of a mirror image of Baby Jane Hudson as Buono's inebriated mother. Just holding his own with these two I'm figuring the Academy figured Buono deserved some recognition. Bette and Joan, both were destined to be trapped in mediocrity for the most part in roles well beneath their talents. Bette to her credit did escape with such things as an Agatha Christie mystery occasionally and The Whales Of August. But mostly she and Joan did horror flicks because of the impression that Whatever Happened To Baby Jane left on the minds of the movie-going public. Both also got unceremoniously dissed by their daughters in memoirs, Bette not having the decency to die before B.D. Hyman's book came out. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane as repulsively fascinating as it is is a testament to two screen legends and the stamina of director Robert Aldrich who got them to share the screen.