What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Short description
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? centres on two sisters who once worked in show business and now share a large, run-down Hollywood house. As a child, Jane Hudson was a popular stage performer, while her sister Blanche stood in the background. Blanche later became the celebrated film star, and Jane's own career faded. In the present, Blanche is unable to walk after a car accident, and Jane looks after her. The care is not affectionate: Jane resents the fame her sister still commands and treats her with cruelty, while nursing hopes of returning to the stage herself. The household holds an uneasy balance that cannot last.
Robert Aldrich directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by Lukas Heller. It was the sixth of the seventeen features he directed, following The Last Sunset and preceding Sodom and Gomorrah. Bette Davis plays Baby Jane Hudson and Joan Crawford plays Blanche Hudson, with Victor Buono, Wesley Addy, Julie Allred and Anne Barton among the cast; the production credits 38 performers and 45 crew members.
The film runs 135 minutes and was released on 31 October 1962. It holds a rating of 8 out of 10 on IMDb from around 67,000 votes and 7.9 out of 10 on TMDB from roughly 1,200 votes, while critics gave it 8.1 out of 10 across 53 reviews, a figure close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The house used as the Hudson sisters' mansion is located at 172 South McCadden Place in Hancock Park, Los Angeles.
- The curious daughter of the neighbor was played by Barbara Merrill, daughter of Bette Davis, who, like Joan Crawford's daughter, Christine Crawford, later published a biographical book portraying her mother in an unfavorable light.
- Bette Davis wears a wig in the film, which was used for Joan Crawford’s makeup in one of her early films. However, the latter did not recognize it, as it had been significantly altered.
- The animosity between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford was also evident during filming. In particular, during the staging of the scene where Jane kicks Blanche, Davis hit Crawford so hard that she needed stitches. In retaliation, Crawford, preparing to film the scene where Jane drags Blanche across the floor, secretly placed a heavy weight in her dress pockets, resulting in Davis severely straining her back by the end of the shooting.
- The film is based on Henry Farrell's novel "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1960).
- The final scene on the beach was filmed in Malibu, in the very same location where director Robert Aldrich filmed the finale of his film "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955).
- The film's success paved the way for other projects directed or produced by Robert Aldrich, which revolved around psychotic women. These films include "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964) and "What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?" (1969).
- The first tensions between the two actresses began when Bette Davis installed a Coca-Cola machine on the set. Joan Crawford, being the widow of a Pepsi-Cola owner, believed Davis had done it deliberately to spite her. The second friction occurred when Davis was nominated for an Oscar for her role in the film.
- The film clips of young Jane that are viewed in the studio are from "The Parachute Jumper" (1933) and "She Done Him Wrong" (1933). The film of young Blanche that she watches on television is "Sadie McKee" (1934).
- At the beginning of the film, when Mrs. Bates enters her home, a painting by Margaret Keane is hanging on the wall, about whom Tim Burton will make the film "Big Eyes" in 2014.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
