What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Rating:
Summary: But you are, Blanche. You ARE in that chair!
Review: This is one great movie! "What Ever Happened to BabyJane?" is, as stated in Amazon's description, the story of twoaging sisters, each in her own way connected with show business.

Now the good stuff. The sisters are played by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (the only time the two ever acted together) to absolute perfection. Crawford is wonderful in the role of crippled sister Blanche, but Miss Davis absolutely walks away with the show as the former "Baby" Jane Hudson. The role is meatly and she revels in it! It is obvious that Miss Davis held the philosophy that, if you are going to go over-the-top, don't apologize. And she doesn't. She goes WAY over-the-top with a gleeful abandon that is infectious.

The way she taunts her wheelchair-bound sister (the title quotes one of Jane's best lines), serves her meals of dead rodents and ex-pets, kicks her in the gut, mocks her ever-so-proper speech, etc. It's all so delicious. And check out the ballet that she does to one of the songs from her childhood vaudeville act. Bette Davis was obviously having the time of her life, and so do the viewers of this classic.

For the DVD edition, there are disappointingly few extras, but Davis is credited with developing the absolutely hideous hair and makeup combinations she sports while slouching about the house in her scuffs and house coat (Director Robert Aldrich said that, while he loved the look, he never would have had the nerve to suggest such a thing to Bette Davis).

Joan Crawford was in fine form, as well. But for Jane to be able to be credible doing the things she did, Blanche had to be the "straight man". Crawford or Aldrich knew this and Blanche behaves accordingly. Consequently, it is Bette Davis' Jane who has the best lines and the showier part in general.

If you have never seen this movie, get it. If you have, go back and visit the Hudson sisters again. Then you might want to write a letter to YOUR daddy.

Rating:
Summary: Color Alternative
Review: Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? is an amazing film graced by the talents of two movie stars who were truly great actresses. Davis and Crawford are standouts in a film that could have turned into pure horror instead of edge of your seat suspense.

The b&w transfer is far better than the reviews that I have read here. I did wonder why a film that was obviously shot in color was ultimately released in black and white. After looking at the back cover of the box and reading the production notes it became clear. The appropriate, albeit clownish makeup that Davis created for the role would have been a dead giveaway that Baby Jane was missing a doll or two.

This film is paid a great deal of homage by Stephen King's 'Misery'. In this 90's version I, like everyone else, applauded Caan's ingenuity. However, at times in WTBJ I had a hard time with Crawford's timidity, and subsequently had to remember the time period - when heroes did the saving and not oneself.

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane is an excellent movie and well worth owning on DVD.

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Summary: WATCH OUT FOR BABY JANE!!!!!
Review: This has got to be one of the most campiest movies ever made. Bette Davis is wonderful in this film. I personally am a strict Joan Crawford fan and she is of course FABULOUS. And to think that they were rivals in real life and then they make this movie. Woooooooooowww! This movie as got to be one of my all-time-favorites. It will blow you away. There are so many good parts in this movie. You will absolutely love it.

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Summary: FunNy, FuNnY,fUnNy!!!
Review: I love this movie! I saw it when I was 13 and laughed till it hurt, I bought this movie a few weeks ago, my 13 y/o daughter and nephew now want to watch it every day.

Rating:
Summary: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Review: Truly chilling low-budget, cult classic thriller about a famous movie actress, Blanche (Joan Crawford) who gets into a rather nasty accident that leaves her crippled and in a wheelchair. Her sister, Jane (Bette Davis), who once was a performer as well (though much lesser known and less talented), must come and tend to Blanche. Jealous of her sister, Jane becomes increasingly more violent and cruel to Blanche and their housekeeper's suspicions are raised when many peculiar things begin to happen that are evidently connected to Jane herself. This 1962 thriller is extremely powerful, with brilliant performances, sparkling production design and direction and a great script. Bette Davis is spine-tingling and over-the-top as the psychopath sister who is truly ahead of her time (as she sometimes says things that didn't appear as normal on film until 1967). Joan Crawford is also very good as the crippled Blanche who seems so innocent and sweet, you just have to have sympathy for her. An amazingly inspirational film, this has become one of the best of its genre even for today's gore-loving audiences (which I am not apart of).

Rating:
Summary: A Scary But Really Good Movie!
Review: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? is one of the most scary movies I have watched.Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? is about two sister that really do not get along that well and they really don't do the things they should do to each other. Jane (Bette Davis)really gets things going in the movie by doing things to her sister that really are not that good. Blanche (Joan Crawford) who was crippled by a auto accident gets everything from her sister. Jane who was a very popular is not popular anymore just takes everything out on Blanche. Jane puts things in Blanche's lunch and locks her in her room,does not let her use the phone,other things that seem pretty mean to do to someone who is crippled and needs a lot of help. Jane is a very twisted person. Poor Blanche never gets to see outside unless she sneeks to the widow.She can never get caught doing that or Jane does something Blanche does not want.I think this movie is really scary but I liked it a lot.I really do give it 5 Stars!

Rating:
Summary: Twisted Sisters
Review: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford chew up the scenery as demented sisters living together in their decaying house. Insanely jealous Jane (Davis) takes every opportunity to demoralize handicapped, sappy Blanche (Crawford), including horribly frightening lunches and the occasional beating. It's all fun and games until a secret from the past comes to light involving exactly why Blanche is in a wheelchair. Will Blanche escape the torture she suffers at the hands of her sister? Will Jane rekindle her musical career? A nasty film that's a guilty pleasure, funnier with each viewing, and shot in dramatic black and white. A cult classic.

Rating:
Summary: What EVER Happened to Great Movies Like This?
Review: This breathless, horrifying film is a great shocker and deliciously malicious thriller. Every second is a haunting one, drawing the viewer into the story, until the viewer can concentrate on nothing else. Bette Davis (in the most bizzare role of what can be said as an EXTREMELY bizzare but illustrious career) plays Jane Hudson, a sixty-year-old has-been child star with a fragile, six-year-old mind. She lives with her sister Blanche (marvelously played by Joan Crawford), who was believed to be crippled by Jane. Blanche was a famous actress of Hollywood's Golden Years, but was supposedly crippled by her jealous sister at the peak of her success. The two live in a decaying, thirties-style house in Hollywood. When Blanche's popularity is revived by her films being shown on television, her drunken sister decides to revive her own kiddie act. In the process, she maliciously cuts off her sister from the outside world, throwing out her telephone, serving her dead birds and rats (two of the film's most memorable scenes), and eventually tying and gagging her crippled sister, leaving her in a dark room to die. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are said never to have gotten along at all, and in these scenes it is particularly unnerving to observe this truth on film. But most memorable is the anticlimatic scene in which it is finally revealed just how Blanche was crippled, and Jane's mental balance snaps. But for all the grotesque, haunting two hours of movie, and sickening truths revealed at film's end, the hardening finality of the film's final shot determines that the question asked at the movie's beginning could never and will never be answered: "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?".

Rating:
Summary: Cult Classic
Review: Mostly for fans of Bette and Joan. Hilariously & deliberately overacted by bug-eyed and screeching Bette Davis. More of a freakshow than any actual story. I don't think this movie has the slightest intention of being taken seriously & is all the better for it.

Rating:
Summary: This is a must see movie!!
Review: "You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I wasn't stuck in this chair!" "But you are Blanche you are!!" Any lover of truly great films should have this in there collection and if you do not you are simply just missing out on the best!!