I loved Whatever happened to Baby Jane. The story is a fairly simple one to summarise, but as with so many utter classics, to do so would perhaps do the film a disservice - so I won't. This wonderful classic has many parallels with one of my all time favourites, Sunset Blvd from 1950 and perhaps some of Misery from the 1990. Of course the story has intrigue, tension, revelations and draws on universal themes and works well in and of itself, but more impressive is the execution from cast and crew.
It's curious.. it somehow felt like a story told with narration, but there was none. I don't know exactly what gave me that feeling, but it speaks volumes to the control and clarity of the story telling and plot development that I felt things were being laid out for me. The focus of the story is the tortured relationship between two sisters (Bette Davis and Joan Crawford), both of whom have had their time in the dizzying spotlight of fame, and both have reason to resent the other. Bette Davis is quite astounding as Jane, who was a huge child star, but has since faded to a distant memory for some, and has been forgotten by most. Her sister Blanche was sidelined and grew bitter as the forgotten child, but has since had a successful film career as an adult, so the two have an interesting dynamic to say the least, and by living in the same house, have little time to escape from each other's shadows. To show this, more than once there is a scene with the camera focused on a conversation taking place in a room. We see them in middle close up and then someone else in the room is revealed, creating an air of constant surveillance and cleverly putting us on edge whenever one is acting secretly from the other.
Bette Davis as Jane is one of the great unhinged film characters, and one of the great all time performances. There is a wonderful standout moment where she is stood in a doorway and childishly and spitefully repeats a solemn question asked to her by Blanche- I wonder how many takes it took to get that so perfect. As mentioned, she is somewhere between Norma Desmond and Annie Wilkes, she sometimes occupies a world which no longer exists, perhaps never did. She can be quite frighteningly cruel to Blanche, and her actions make for interesting analysis. It's not that she doesn't mean to abuse her sister, it's more like she doesn't have a real grasp on the morality and implications. Take the final scene on the beach which gives vibes very much like those of Sunset Blvd, her fantasy world has now taken over, whatever there was left of her has, for now, departed. Jane makes sand castles and plays with a beach ball before dancing on the sand in a haunting image (which strangely put me in mind of Seventh Seal), it confirms that which is suggested during a few moments in the film prior, that she is living in a mental state approaching perpetual Childhood - as those were the times that were most fruitful for her, although also without doubt the most damaging. Children can be extraordinarily cruel without the hindsight of adulthood teaching them how memories can shape the rest of a life for the worst.
It is a stone cold classic because everything about it works, it is timeless, and it makes you think. I would still put Sunset Blvd just above it, but this doesn't cone close, which is high praise indeed.
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