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Summary: We'd all make lovely pine trees....
Review: Anchor Bay is a wonderful company, releasing some truly demented little gems on high-quality DVD's for demented little viewers like me. This is one of the best of the "Star slumming in b-movie guignol" you can find- it's well paced, well written and fantastically well acted by Geraldine Page (the scene where she tries to kill the dog is amazing) and Ruth Gordon. Nobody in the movie is truly who they seem, except the nice young woman next door, and I am not going to tell you one more thing. Go get this movie right now- you'll have a blast!
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Summary: DELIGHTFUL GRAND GUIGNOL......
Review: Anchor Bay is to be graciously commended for delivering this delicious concoction to DVD. A very black murder tale is marvelously enacted by two top ladies of the old school of acting---Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon. They are perfectly matched in a deadly cat & mouse game that is one of the most entertaining films of it's kind. Page is left high & dry (she thinks) after her husband passes on so she moves to Arizona to make the best of it. However, her lifestyle is not to be denied as she carries out a wicked plan to supplement her modest income. What follows is a series of "companions" who mysteriouly disappear after allowing Page to "invest" their savings. Meanwhile, new pine trees keep popping up around her house. This is where Gordon comes in as she hires on to be the next companion. Actually on the trail of a friend who vanished while employed with Page, she has to match wits with the devious woman while trying to keep one step ahead of her at all times. The two Grande Dames go at it in high style and the viewer can just sit back and enjoy. Rosemary Forsyth co-stars as a new neighbor with a small son and a dog who runs afoul of Page and suspects something is wrong. The scene with Page trying to kill the dog (who just won't cooperate) is an amusing highlight. A most enjoyable thriller and very recommended---especially for fans of Page and Gordon.
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Summary: Twisted Fun
Review: Aunt Alice is really an oddity in some ways. Baby Jane and Charlotte were first of course and both had their moments, but the camp scale is upped a bit here due to the way the mod, ultra-cool early 70's sets and clothing look to the viewer today. Page is wild here: creepy and scary at one moment and then hillariously funny the next. Gordon is all plucky determination as she investiagtes the mystery of Page's character. Together, they are a delight to watch as they spa and smack each other with equal glee. Great fun.
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Summary: Ultimate Camp Classic is an enormous unheralded gem
Review: campy thriller, brilliantly acted by its main protagonists. The fantastic Geraldine Page stars as a psychotic widow with a penchant for growing the very sturdiest and handsome of Pine trees - her secret is human fertiliser in the form of a series of butchered companions. Slowly suspicion rises and a friend of one of the deceased, now fertiliser fodder, begins to catch on to Page's dastardly deeds. Geraldine Page delivers a tour de force performance as Claire Marrable - oozing a charming menace and evil with every breath. Yet there are severe undertones of humour and one senses that the actors involved would have a good cackle after every take. Page's performance rates with the most vintage camp EVER. She obviously relished and thoroughly enjoyed the role. Ruth Gordon, best remembered from the wonderful Harold and Maude, delivers a typically feisty and spunky performance as the Aunt Alice of the title. It is vintage stuff and works equally successfully as a taut thriller but best of all as the blackest and most wicked of comedies. Please also appreciate the totally schizo music score that is so appropriate for the film. A gem from director Robert Aldrich who gave us another cult favourite, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
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Summary: Devilish fun!
Review: Claire Marrable, a destitute widow, finds a way to keep herself living the good life by hiring a series of housekeepers whom she eventually murders, steals their life savings and buries them in her desert pine tree garden. An incredibly fun movie which derives pleasure from the lead actors. Geraldine Page (as Mrs. Marrable) and Ruth Gordon (as Alice Dimmock, the latest housekeeper who is actually trying to find out what happened to her friend who mysteriously vanished while working for Marrable) chew the scenery to the hilt and it is so much fun watching the interactions between the two. Watch Page's reaction when Gordon tells her the amount in her savings account - priceless! The film as a whole suffers somewhat from some dull supporting characters and a dreary romantic sub-plot involving Gordon's nephew and Page's neighbor. Still worth it for the acting dynamo of Page and Gordon and even Mildred Dunnock manages some nice moments in her few scenes. And you'll never forget the frenetic zither music score! The quality of the dvd is very good. The picture is sharp and the colors are strong. The only extra feature is a trailer for the film which delivers the memorable tag-line - "Whatever happened to Aunt Alice is more terrifying than what happened to Baby Jane"!
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Summary: An excellent mixture of chills and dark comedy.
Review: Don't let the title fool you. This is not a parody of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. AUNT ALICE is its own little film, and what a nifty one it is. The great Geraldine Page stars as Mrs. Marrable, a widow whose husband left her only a stamp album. Unable(and unwilling) to cope with poverty, Mrs. Marrable is able to live up to her station by devising a plan that consists of hiring-then murdering housekeepers for their private incomes. The plan works very well until Mrs. Marrable makes the mistake of eliminating wispy Miss Tinsley(Mildred Dunnock) whose feisty friend, Mrs. Dimmock(the delightful Ruth Gordon), promptly applies for a position at the Marrable residence in order to solve this bizarre missing-persons mystery. Theodore Apstein's script(based on the novel 'The Forbidden Garden' by Ursula Curtiss) is a superlative mixture of spine-tingling suspense and dark comedy. The supporting cast performs competently enough, but the film ultimately belongs to Page and Gordon who both turn in positively flawless portrayals. The DVD is an absolute must for collectors. DVD lovers may at first be put off by the lack of extra material on this particular release, but it does include the original theatrical trailer(which isn't included on the VHS release), and the film itself never looked better. Highly recommended!
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Summary: "Baby Jane" meets "Sweet Charlotte"
Review: Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon are the formidable females of this Gothic "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"/Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" spin-off. Page is an Arizona widow who maintains her very comfortable lifestyle by murdering her housekeepers and appropriating their savings. Gordon is a tough amateur sleuth who hires on as her next victim in hopes of getting to the bottom of missing persons mystery. A very fine, entertaining tale of suspense. I dare say it's more than a little farfetched at times, but the strong performances by the veteran leading ladies are always believable and make the film reach the pinnacle of art. The newly restored, widescreen edition from Anchor Bay is absolutely flawless and is a must!!!!!
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Summary: 5 Stars for Geraldine Page; 0 Stars for Anyone Else Involved
Review: Geraldine Page is one of the greatest actresses of our time. This movie, paradoxically, perhaps demonstrates this better than her more "serious" work such as "Sweet Bird of Youth," "Summer and Smoke" and "Interiors" because SHE'S THE ONLY PERSON INVOLVED WITH THIS MOVIE WHO HAS A SHRED OF TALENT (besides Mildred Dunnock, whose role is too small to help). In the other movies I mention, Page is in the company of talented actors and directors; in this movie, she's surrounded by a complete lack of talent and/or ability. Page gives a spectacularly wonderful performance and a witty characterization that is altogether astonishing in the midst of so much bad acting and directing. THE ACTING STINKS, STINKS, STINKS EXCEPT FOR PAGE. Ruth Gordon was always a ham, and she is here too. Still, she presents enough of a character for Page to work against. The music score is ridiculously overbearing, inappropriate, hysterical and maudlin, sometimes all at the same time. My copy of the DVD has the worst sound of any DVD in my collection. The voices are tinny, weak and distant, while the scritching violins are in your face, along with every telephone ring and every other unimportant sound effect. Clearly Anchor Bay or whoever is responsible for producing the DVD botched the entire sound process. The best scene in the movie is with Page and the dog. This is because Page is the only one with lines in this scene, and she shows how she can rise above the tawdriness of the production and the (lack of) direction. Still, even her purring-est, steeliest, scorching line readings barely make it past the "music." I've waited for years to own this performance, and I'm grateful that I can see Geraldine Page at the height of her powers (but, then, when wasn't she?), but I'm disgusted by the low production values of the DVD presentation (not to mention of the movie itself). The voices at times literally buzz with distortion. Unless you're an admirer of Geraldine Page, stay away. If you do appreciate her, however, it's definitely worth putting up with all the garbage around her. Fortunately, the DVD has chapter stops, so you can skip a lot of the muck. My recommendation: press the forward-scan button every second Page is not onscreen. But you might be tempted to scan backwards and watch Page again and again as she gets a chance to do her thing, which is great character work and an astonishing variety and depth of emotion. I look forward to quality DVD releases of "Sweet Bird of Youth" and "Summer and Smoke" in particular, but Geraldine Page is virtually flawless in everything she ever did.
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Summary: scenery chewing by pros
Review: Geraldine Page is the champion scenery chewer of all time and "Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice" gives her a role to really chew. She gets to go over the top as a middle aged widow who hires old lady companions then kills them for their life savings. She gets to rage, go mad, murder and wear a horrendous fright wig that will thrill any fan of middle aged actresses in lurid question asking horror movies.
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Summary: The Best Movie Ever!
Review: I have been looking for this movie for ever. I cannot believe that I've finally found it. I remember when I first saw this in the movie theatre, and I just fell in love with both actresses. I am quite a movie buff, and I just can't say enough about this movie. If you have the opportunity to acquire, please do so. You won't regret it.
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