Akira Kurosawa, the legendary Japanese filmmaker, called this one of his favorite films. One of the characters was named #44 of the Top 100 Villains of American Cinema by the American Film Institute. Made for under $1 million, and filmed in black and white to make sure the film looked as gritty as the plot, the film was a surprise box office hit and became the centerpiece for the 2017 documentary series Feud. It starred Bette Davis as the title character and Joan Crawford as her sister.
I remember the first time I saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? It’s a memorable film, and if you’ve never seen it, you should rectify the situation immediately. It celebrates its 60th anniversary this Halloween.
Back in the 1960s, a time when middle-aged actresses were in scarce demand, Baby Jane paired two aging box office legends with on-screen animosity that mirrored their off-screen rivalries. Hollywood knew how to write plots and do set designs and lighting for glamorous young stars, but it was at a loss as to what to do with a grand old actress who was ratcheting up past 50. Baby Jane was their attempt to make a film that defied convention, because Hollywood convention at the time pretty much ignored women leads past the age of 30.
The plot is about two sisters living in a dilapidated old Hollywood mansion that had once belonged to Rudolf Valentino. The older sister, Jane, had been a child star whose career ended as she grew up. Once a sensation who enjoyed nonstop fame and fortune, Jane was soon eclipsed by her younger sister Blanche. Jane had to watch impotently as Blanche emerged as a real adult movie star. Blanche wasn’t a kiddie act, she was the real thing, a real actress. Her career was cut short by a crippling accident that left her in a wheelchair.
Jane and Blanche play two sides of one dysfunctional coin. Jane has descended into insanity, trying to dress and act like the little girl star she once was, while the more reserved and sane Blanche is physically unable to care for herself. Blanche and Jane enter a weird symbiotic relationship that Dr. Phil would call unhealthy. Blanche needs Jane and Jane is a sadistic caregiver. The house belongs to Blanche and Jane depends on Blanche economically. Neither woman has a husband or a family or even any friends.
The story opens when Jane finds out that Blanche is making plans to sell their old house so she can go into some sort of residential care facility. Blanche is doing this secretly, because she figures selling the house is her last chance for any sort of freedom and dignity. It’s Blanche’s house, after all. Jane is not so crazy that she does not realize what it would mean if Blanche sold the house: Jane would be homeless, penniless, and abandoned.
The dysfunctional “toboggan ride” (as one reviewer called it) of Blanche and Jane spirals out of control from there but not before crashing into a few trees. The more Jane realizes she needs Blanche, the less inclined she is to be kind to her. In Jane’s twisted way of thinking, Blanche has declared war and Jane intends to fight every way she can.
That’s all of the plot I care to share. Be aware, there are plenty of twists and turns and some unexpected revelations about Jane and Blanche. This is not a good movie to put on in the background as you go about your day … it’s what I call a “watcher,” the kind of film whose plot demands attention because the details will end up mattering.
One of the reasons to watch the film is to watch Bette Davis, who should have won an Oscar for her performance. She created the ghastly look of Baby Jane and she wanted the film and its character to portray that ugly, sordid side of Hollywood denizens fighting bitterly against their expiration date. Most women in cinema like to look good; Davis liked to look like a great actress. Crawford, on the other hand, got to retain some Hollywood glamour in the part but her sort of passive elegance in parts of the film makes a nice canvas for her sufferings and her rage.
In some ways, this film is about Hollywood—how despite the glamour, the price of stardom is always more than we can pay. These two sisters had two very different careers in the limelight, but in the end, they wind up out of work, nearly out of money, and alone in a big old house with nothing to do but try to destroy each other. The Hollywood they embrace and the glitter they still covet has turned out to be dirty and ugly. If they filmed Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in smell-o-vision, it would smell musty.
The sale of the house represents freedom to Blanche and a path to the restoration of her worth as a human being. Blanche can almost forget she was once an actress—she wants only to be recognized as a human being. Imagine having to go to a nursing home to get your dignity back! For Jane, the sale of the house represents the bitter truth that her career is over, she has grown up, and she is now just a forgotten old lady living off the charity of her sister.
Davis and Crawford have powerful on-screen chemistry in the fact that you will see flashes of genuine hatred and loathing. I buy into the Hollywood legend that these two women really despised each other. As much as we talk about modern performers being divas, these two could give diva lessons.
Besides being an eminently watchable film, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? launched a genre, well, maybe not a genre… it gave rise to the plausibility that great actresses might still be able to make great movies even when they were in their 50s. This film was made right after the untimely death of film icon Marilyn Monroe (she died in August 4, 1962 and Baby Jane was released October 31, 1962). According to her housekeeper, around the time of her death, Monroe was fretting that at the ripe old age of 36 she was aging out of the prime Hollywood roles. And in an era where actresses like Ursula Andress (the Bond girl), Brigitte Bardot, and Audrey Hepburn struggled to look as beautiful as possible for their roles, Davis wanted to play a scary insane old lady more than she wanted to be pretty. Crawford retains more of that old-school cinematic elegance even playing Blanche, but she still gets in ugly situations and winds up revealing how a hate-filled sister can manipulate a mentally ill persecutor. Jane is overtly sadistic and in some ways, more honest; Blanche is a flatterer, a schemer, a cajoler, and the one who intends to leave her mentally ill sister homeless and abandoned.
The film was directed by Robert Aldrich (one of his other big hits was The Dirty Dozen), but it has the look and feel of something that Hitchcock might have cooked up. Word has it that Jack Warner, the head of Warner Brothers Studio, did not want to make this picture, because he thought Davis and Crawford were too old. He allegedly told Aldrich he wouldn’t pay a nickel to see those two old broads in a movie. Aldrich was able to talk Warner into making the picture by promising they could do it at bargain-basement prices and on a tight shooting schedule.
Attempts to take this old-girl genre further led to Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte and maybe (if you squint) some Stephen King movies like Misery. But in many ways Baby Jane stands as a one-of-a-kind. The story is good, the acting superb, the plot dark and moody … but best of all it’s so entirely unexpected. Right up to the very end.