What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

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Luis M. D This is a movie that should please everyone who likes serious psychological thrillers. What makes this story interesting is the slowly growing suspense rather than the gore or violence. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/11/24 Full Review helder f The premise of the movie is very suitable to create a great melodramatic movie. It deals with childhood stardom, with sibling rivalry and aging in Hollywood. Davis’s performance stands out, but she has much more to work with than Crawford. Her character is a bit confusing, at times evil, other times child-like regressed. I found that this was a movie to bring Crawford and Davis together, but otherwise it’s a bit flat. The length of the movie was distracting. Certain scenes could be cut short and others even skipped. Also distracting is the fact that script doesn’t show great attention to detail and realism. To imagine that a wealthy actress becomes bound to a wheelchair but remains living in the second floor of her house with no access to the first floor or the street… Davis with her raspy voice being able to imitate Crawford’s voice… it’s clear that the movie had other priorities than attempting to be realistic. I didn’t particularly enjoyed it, but audiences used to be more forgiving Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 05/25/24 Full Review Alec C Stardom can be blinding, leaving you naive to the reality surrounding you! Jane Hudson is a former child star that torments her quadraplegic sister Blanche and misguidedly attempts to reclaim her lost popularity, but instead she continues to fall into insanity as her sister suffers. A disturbing look at the toxicity of fame and its mental degradation, this iconic thriller manages to leave a hole in the pits of our stomachs! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/18/24 Full Review Ryan D Joan Crawford's acting is good, believable, Bette Davis's is overly theatrical and fake, can't believe she nominated for an Oscar for this?! The storyline is long and drawn out for not much happening, certain scenes are far too long, for example Blanche making her way down the stairs. Not much of a storyline, not really much happening, could have condensed the entire 2H+ film into 30 minutes. The ending is bitterly disappointing, ended on a beach too many unanswered questions: did Blanche die? If not did she tell the police? Did Jane get arrested? If she did was she charged for her crimes against Blanche? Was she charged for murdering Elvera (maid) Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/07/24 Full Review Patrick C So freaking good. Tense and tragic and complex with just a hint of camp. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 10/12/23 Full Review Ian G Somehow I've managed to miss this ultra dark cameo of sibling antagonism till about half an hour back, when I found it streamable from the BBC's iplayer app. And what a tale it was... with a chapter of cruelties visited on one sister by another - noting that that statement didn't identify which was the recipient of said cruelty... Without examining every single example of how this all unfolded, suffice to say that Bette Davis got nearly all the hi-tariff lines and action, while Crawford had to play the one getting it all in the neck from the unhinged Baby Jane (Davis). The story depicts horrific acts of emotional and physical abuse on Crawford, but the tale's eventual sting shows that due to a lie of keeping quiet about how she'd been crippled, it was really Crawford's character who was the engineer of her own eventual demise - and her sister's insanity. There's several "buts", however. Without going into tortuous detail, the home help Elvira bravely gets access to the house and is caught in the act of forcing Crawford's bedroom door open when she finds it's been locked by Davis to imprison her sister, she forces the key from Davis who she she knows full well is unhinged and deeply vindictive, yet she then unbelievably puts down the hammer being used to force the door to accept the door key from Davis, which she's extorted from her. And of course she then unbelievably stupidly enters the room leaving Davis free to take said hammer and - foreseeably enough - use it to bash in the back of her head. Who in any conceivable world might have done that?? It's just the sort of thing that - as you're watching it you know a completely obvious brainless move has just been made that NOBODY with her insight would have done. This is stupid, lazy writing and let the film down badly. The other stupid move was by Crawford when she tossed her Help Me note to the neighbour who was visible outside. Yet - did she scream or even call to her to raise the chances of the note being found by its intended recipient? No. Why? Only the writer could explain that one. And of course Davis finds it, reads it, takes revenge on Crawford. Completely shallow writing again, Stupid writing insults the audience, Each of these could easily have been rejigged to make them credible, yet the director let these go through to the Final Cut, Forgive these trespasses on common sense, the remainder is a well told tale. But with a not too guessable tail-sting in the form of what amounts to a deathbed confession from Crawford that she ..... To find out what that was, you'll need to watch it. But it's a real stinger for sure, showing the real torturer to have been other than we'd had it suggested. Famously, these two once-A-list but now faded screenqueens hated each other. And Davis used her hatred without question on Crawford. Or so it looked. I've read before about this alleged hatred, and seems to have been real enough. Much later, Crawford's daughter wrote in a biography called Mummy Dearest about Crawford's unhinged behaviour towards her children so if those allegations are true it'd seem that Crawford had real vicious tendencies all her own. If you get any chance to see this, don't miss it. The performance by the whole cast is classic stuff. And the thing nearly didn't get made, because the studio bosses could only fixate on how the two main characters were "unbankable". No longer being considered sexually alluring women. The film budget came in well under a million. And went on to make $90m, becoming a classic that still gets plaudits. And got 5 Oscar nominations, winning one. Despite having two middle aged women as its main stars. But both were accomplished and talented actresses, and were obviously still extremely "bankable". Looks like studio bosses maybe should be the last people to decide on what should be made? Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 10/03/23 Full Review Read all reviews

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

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