Rent What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Classic Suspense Thriller - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? review by GI

A taut, suspense thriller with the undertones of gothic horror and two remarkable central performances. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford play two ageing sisters, Jane and Blanche, who live together in a decaying Beverley Hills mansion. Jane was a child vaudeville star with their father who doted on her but she failed to make it as an adult movie actress. Whereas Blanche, ignored by her father, did become a much beloved film star but after an incident in their car was left paralysed from the waist down. Now Jane, out of a deep rooted jealousy, embittered, alcoholic and bordering on psychosis torments Blanche who is unable to leave her room. As Jane's madness becomes more extreme Blanche is desperate to get help but has no way of communicating with anyone outside the house. Filmed in black and white the film has the feel of a haunted house story and Davis' caked make up makes her a grotesque and frightening figure whilst there are elements of her performance that draw in sympathy, it is an outstanding performance. The story is a dig at the Hollywood lifestyle and the destruction that celebrity and fame can cause and in that sense there's a sort of irony in the casting of two of America's major female stars from the classic years of Hollywood. Crawford is equally good here, a former glamour actress she almost plays herself but shows the vulnerability of her character in her desperation to control her sister's more violent rages. This is a dark tale, wonderfully directed and controlled to build the tension. It's a masterpiece of 60s American cinema and definitely a film you should see.

Gothic Comedy. - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? review by Steve

The popular image of this film seems to have been swallowed up by the long public dispute of its two elderly stars. A legend has grown around the rivalry of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford which nourishes the film's eccentric horror, which in turn fortifies the myth of their enmity.

Baby Jane is a child star in the era of vaudeville, the sort of awful, sentimentalised poppet popular in America between the wars. Later on, sister Blanche becomes a famous actor in '30s Hollywood making the women's pictures that Bette and Joan appeared in back then. So the story goes, Jane paralysed Blanche in car crash when she was drunk. Out of jealousy. But maybe Blanche has something to hide.

Thirty years on, Jane (Davis) is going crazy. She torments Blanche (Crawford) who is trapped in a wheelchair within a room of her Hollywood mansion. They are freakish curiosities, hidden away from the California sun in their dusty mausoleum. Like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd. Joan suffers effectively, but Bette is phenomenal as a dissolute, spiteful monster who never really stopped being Baby Jane.

 Robert Aldrich creates an airless, antiquated cage for the former stars to inhabit, sheltered from the sunlit materialism of the real world. Victor Bueno is lavish as another grotesque, the venal, obsequious pianist Jane enlists to recreate her old musical act. To be her new daddy. But this is Bette's film. She gives an uninhibited, once in a lifetime performance, making Baby Jane Hudson one of the legends of American Gothic.