Review of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) by Anca B — 03 Oct 2009

SPOILERS CONTAINED!

Excellent performances but frustration abounds for me when watching this. It's nice to see that Hollywood was still aware of the usual messed up fates of child stars, as we see Baby Jane (the brat) grow up into a chubby mess. Davis plays an excellent psychotic here, treating Blanche with total disregard while having lapses back to her childhood memories (a really good scene when she is singing one of her old songs and reaches a verse about being too young while turning to see her old self in the mirror and shrieks and cowers. From cooking parakeets and rats to feed her sister, it is clear why she was nominated for an Oscar.

Joan Crawford plays a good naivety for once, a total opposite of a lot of her roles. It's her character that provides the most flaws in the story. For instance, she tries to shout out her window at the neighbor but in a voice way lower than her normal speaking voice. She tries to get down the stairs and yes, she is crippled, but has anyone tried to climb down the stairs head first as a kid? You can get from the top to the bottom in less than 5 seconds, I swear.

This brings me to another frustrating point- in the entire time it takes Baby Jane to drive some guy to his house across town, and run a few errands (I would imagine an hour?) it takes Blanche that amount of time to either make it down the stairs and call a doctor or to try and toss a note out the window to the neighbors. The time really doesn't add up to me.

Another plot frustration is that Blanche calls her doctor in a panicked state, tells him her sister is violent and he needs to come over right away. Jane gets home and delivers a beat down to Blanche, calls the doctor and imitating her, tells him everything's alright. Seriously, if you're a doctor and you patient calls you in such a horrid and panicked state only to call very calm 5 minutes later, wouldn't you be worried for their mental health at all?!

Their is a twist to this film... but I will say it wasn't mind blowing.

IMO it is a good film to at least see because it is a classic and would've been very unique at the time- but I would not prepare to be impressed, as I was. Crawford and Davis dis-taste for each other in real life had a good outlet in this film. I'm not sure I would ever watch it again though.