‘Yes, she’s emotionally disturbed. She’s unbalanced…’
Bette Davis delivered what is essentially the greatest example of someone playing a faded movie star ever when she introduced the world to Margo in All About Eve. That film cemented her status as an actress able to take her own vulnerabilities and insecurities and turn them into something masterful. It is astonishing that she was able to do the same thing again 12 years later in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Baby Jane Hudson (Davis) is an alcoholic former child star who now lives in a crumbling mansion with her paraplegic sister Blanche (Joan Crawford). The fact that it is presumed that Baby Jane was the one that caused Blanche’s accident hangs over both of them.
Working from Lukas Heller’s script (itself based on Henry Farrell’s novel), director Robert Aldrich shoots What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? like a horror film with Jane emerging from the shadows caked in horrifying makeup and smiling a sinister smile. Jane proceeds to terrorise Blanche throughout 134 gruelling minutes before the ultimate truth about the Hudson sisters is revealed. When the twist comes, one of the more memorable switcheroos in cinematic history, it hits hard, and like all great twists, it casts everything that has come before it in a different light.
The fact that Davis and Crawford had a lifelong mutual hatred only adds an additional layer of intrigue, and the stories that came out post-production are just as entertaining as the movie itself (in one of many examples Davis had a Coca-Cola machine installed on set to deliberately provoke Crawford as she was a spokesperson to Pepsi. Outstanding work). This shared disdain is the driving force behind an astonishing pair of performances, and it is unfortunate that only Davis was nominated for Best Actress (although she lost out to Anne Bancroft in the end anyway – ironically the same actress who had played Eve in All About Eve).
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a film that sees two of Hollywood’s most iconic actresses trading blows both on and off camera. A joy to behold.