What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Two-Disc Special Edition)
by Robert Aldrich, Susan F. Walker
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Julie Allred, Victor Buono, Wesley AddyDirector: Robert Aldrich, Susan F. Walker
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Ellen Krass
Producer: Kenneth Hyman
Producer: Louise Gallop-Roholt
Writer: David Ansen
Writer: Henry Farrell
Writer: Lukas Heller
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 134 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-30
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Movie Review: Clash Of The Movie Titans: The Famed Hudson Sisters
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Aldrich's 1962 Movie Masterpiece, "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" is one of my all time favorite films and one of the visionary staples of my youth. I have long admired the "larger than life" glamour and cinematic greatness of Movie Legends Bette Davis b. Ruth Elizabeth Davis, (1908-1989) and Joan Crawford b. Lucille Faye LeSueur, (1904-1977) and this superbly acted, well-crafted film justifies and further cements that appreciation.
In short, the film is about an embittered, neurotic has-been vaudevillian child-star and actress, and the psychological reign of terror that she exerts over her crippled 1930's Movie-Queen sister. It's about intense and unhealthy sibling rivalry, family dysfunction, jealously, guilt, neurosis, substance abuse and the "dark side" of Hollywood Fame.
This film is visually stunning! Shot in glorious black and white, the film opens with a day in the life (circa 1917) of child star Baby Jane Hudson, a beautiful little girl with an Angelic singing voice and loads of charisma. Not only is Jane Hudson the "star headliner" of the Vaudevillian Circuit, but she's the breadwinner of her family as well, which consists of her brow-beaten, care-worn mother, her sychophant milquetoast of a father, and her sister Blanche, a dour, freckled faced child with pigtails and large, soulful eyes.
In these opening sequences, the viewer can see how early family dynamics contributed to the development of the sisters, their adversarial relationship with one another, and the origin of the dysfunction that facilitated the conditions for the horror to come.
The year is 1935, the girls are now beautiful young women, and Blanche Hudson is one of the most successful stars in movies, by comparison, Jane's star has faded, and she is now relegated to minor roles in "B-movies". Jane's wild, self-destructive lifestyle, fueled by her burgeoning alcoholism, is beginning to render her unreliable and unemployable by the studio system.
Although Blanche is now the "favored" sister, a tragic turn of events occur that serves to alter her life's course and that of her sister Jane, as well. The montage of events filmed by Director Aldrich to depict "the accident" is a touch of genius. I mean everything from the stylish luxury car of the time, the costumes, and the music come together to imprint an indeliable impression on the mind of the viewer. There's a shot of an elegantly bejewled shoe on a dainty foot releasing the clutch, a graceful manicured hand shifting the gears of the car, and the rev of the engine and the crash of the car into the gates after almost running over a woman resplendently gowned in evening wear. A woman screams, then there are sobs in the night, cut to a shot of the car's exhaust, then the life-sized Baby Jane Doll lying on the pavement, her beauty marred by the immense fracture in her head, in a symbolic presentiment of the events to come, revealing the dark chasm of future madness within. Viewing this scene as a child always terrified me, especially with the enigmatic question, the words seeming to eerily come directly out of that doll's head, accompanied by Frank DeVol's thunderous, bombastic score: "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"
And that's just the beginning of the film!
This film revived the careers of both Davis and Crawford, who were considered "past their prime" as it was politely said in the vernacular of the day. In fact, this film was a box office success in its initial release, and Davis received her fifth Academy Award nomination for her disturbingly dynamic portrayal of the yowling, grotesque and murderous Baby Jane. This groundbreaking film (along with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) also helped to give birth to a new genre of film, the psychological thriller. This film boasts a fine cast and includes such luminaries of the day as Marjorie Bennett, Anna Lee, Julie Allred, character actress Maidie Norman, in a scene-stealing turn as the fiesty "cleaning lady" Elvira Stitt, and it also launched the career of Victor Buono.
I can't say enough about how well this movie was made. Aldrich directs in a style that's very visual, in the tradition of directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, Steven Speilberg and later, James Cameron. The cinematography for this film is excellent and is highly compatible with DeVol's dramatic, atmospheric and haunting score. I love this movie, and it's difficult to envision anyone else other than Bette Davis and Joan Crawford playing the Famed Hudson Sisters. I read the Novel by Henry Farrell when I was in High School, and I can earnestly say that the screenplay was very faithful to the source material. This DVD also contains two featurettes, one about Bette Davis and hosted by Jodie Foster, the other about Joan Crawford, and a "Anatomy of a Scene" featurette consisting of "on location" footage filmed in 1962.
The Aldrich Company and Associates Presents: A Robert Aldrich Film. "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" Starring: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Introducing Victor Buono, Marjorie Bennett, Anna Lee, with Debbie Burton as the singing voice of Baby Jane, and Maidie Norman as Elvira.
Cinematography by Ernest Haller
Music By Frank DeVol
1962 Aldrich Company and Associates
Grade: A+
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