Review #199: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #54: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? follows two aged Hollywood starlet sisters, Jane and Blanche, who have begrudgingly lived together for many years after a car accident left Blanche confined to a wheelchair. Both sisters hate one another, and their deep-seated hatred has begun to hit a breaking point as Jane struggles to hold a tight grip on a world that no longer remembers her.

My thoughts on this movie itself are pretty simple: This is a long film (2 hours 15) that really didn't need to be that long, and it's a pretty slow burn. The tension is there, you really feel the fear and paranoia you're meant to feel, so it's not a bad time, I just really think it could have been tightened up (either in the script phase or the editing phase) to cut off like a solid half an hour. Then again, movies were just slower back then, I guess. I appreciate how this movie is such a cerebral story about familial bitterness and a longing for a past that you've moved beyond, so for that alone I recommend this movie, but again, know that you're sitting down for a long haul.

(Also, this really bothered me: was there some reason Blanche was unable to yell in this film? She spent so long trying to write out a note and toss it out her window to get her neighbor's attention, when she could have just yelled down there any time. When she heard Jane's male associate in the house, she could've yelled down the stairs to get his attention, but she didn't. Twice the housekeeper came and went and Blanche didn't notice until after she was gone- if it were me, I'd have stayed glued to that window night and day! And when she finally got to a phone to call for help, she didn't bother to call the police, she called a doctor and then waited on hold. And instead of saying "I think my sister is trying to kill me" she danced around the issue for a couple minutes instead of getting right to the point. Come on, Blanche! Speak up, woman! Your life depends on it!)

The real interesting thing about this film, though, is what went on behind the scenes. The two lead actresses- Joan Crawford and Bette Davis- HATED each other in real life, much as they hated each other on-screen. Both have written books about their decades-long feud, both have talked and been interviewed at length about it and the role this movie played in it, and so much of the film seems to have been built upon the foundation of that feud. It's like the filmmakers knew the audience would be aware of this real-life hatred before seeing the movie, and so they factored that in to the writing. Also, the details that the actresses put into their performances- like how Bette Davis insisted on doing her makeup herself because her intention was to look like someone who "never washed her face, just put on another layer of makeup" which fits the character 1000% (and a professional makeup artist would probably be reticent to let that happen). I just really respect the amount of craftsmanship that went into the making of this film, and although I don't think it's the most exciting film out there, it's definitely an interesting story (both on-camera and off) and it's worth a watch.

Overall Rating: 7/10 Life-Sized Dolls

Genre Creation: Many critics consider this movie as the creation of the "hag horror" subgenre, also known as "psycho-biddy," "hagsploitation," and "Grande Dame Guignol".