Review of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) by Michael C — 31 Oct 2012

Featuring the stellar performances of Joan Crawford and Betty Davis, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a movie finely crafted to build tension for the audience. The camera is used to highten the viewer's uneasiness, and does this quite well as the narrative unravels.

Some of the darkness of the story is first touched upon with the opening sequence, in which Joan Crawford's character is crushed by an unknown driver, destroying her legs. As the film progresses, Betty Davis's horrid treatment of her sister (Joan Crawford) escalates, to the point that the audience in dread of her every action.

The intense close up character shots and different framing techiniques capture every emotion that these two women go through as one of them decends into madness and the other grows weaker. This is a brooding, sad, and disturbing film, but is also a worthwhile watch.