Contemporary reviews were mixed. In a generally negative review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther observed, "[Davis and Crawford] do get off some amusing and eventually blood-chilling displays of screaming sororal hatred and general monstrousness ... The feeble attempts that Mr. Aldrich has made to suggest the irony of two once idolized and wealthy females living in such depravity, and the pathos of their deep-seated envy having brought them to this, wash out very quickly under the flood of sheer grotesquerie. There is nothing moving or particularly significant about these two." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times also panned the film, writing that Crawford and Davis had been turned into "grotesque caricatures of themselves" and that the film "mocks not only its characters but also the sensibilities of its audience." Mae Tinee of the Chicago Tribune wrote, "This isn't a movie, it's a caricature. Bette Davis' make-up could very well have been done by Charles Addams, Joan Crawford's perils make those of Pauline look like good, clean fun and the plot piles one fantastic twist upon another until it all becomes nonsensical." Brendan Gill of The New Yorker was somewhat negative as well, calling the film "far from being a Hitchcock—it goes on and on, in a light much dimmer than necessary, and the climax, when it belatedly arrives, is a bungled, languid mingling of pursuers and pursued which put me in mind of Last Year at Marienbad. Still, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford do get a chance to carry on like mad things, which at least one of them is supposed to be."
Among the positive reviews, Variety stated that after a slow and overlong introduction the film became "an emotional toboggan ride," adding, "Although the results heavily favor Davis (and she earns the credit), it should be recognized that the plot, of necessity, allows her to run unfettered through all the stages of oncoming insanity ... Crawford gives a quiet, remarkably fine interpretation of the crippled Blanche, held in emotionally by the nature and temperament of the role." Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post also liked the film, writing that "Miss Davis has the showiest role and bites into it with all her admired force, looking a fright from head to foot. I doubt if she would regret some of the laughs she gets. She plays for them and psychologically, they are needed. If Miss Crawford has the passive role, that is not without rewards. Suffering is one of her particular gifts." The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that numerous directorial techniques, including all the plunging shots down the staircase, made the film look "rather like an anthology of the oldest and most hackneyed devices in thrillerdom. And yet, in its curious Gothic way, the film works marvelously, though mainly as a field-day for its actors."
In Sight & Sound, Peter John Dyer stated that the film had "a frequent air of incompetence," writing of Aldrich's direction that "Like some textbook student of Hitchcock who never got beyond Blackmail, he dispenses suspense with ham-fisted conventionality." Dyer did praise the performances of the leads, however, finding that they seemed to have found "a new maturity, a discipline encouraged perhaps by the confined sets and Crawford's wheelchair, or by the interaction of their professional rivalry upon a belated mutual respect."
More recent assessments have been more uniformly positive.
In a retrospective review, TV Guide awarded the film four stars, calling it "Star wars, trenchantly served" and adding, "If it sometimes looks like a poisonous senior citizen show with over-the-top spoiled ham, just try to look away ... As in the best Hitchcock movies, suspense, rather than actual mayhem, drives the film."
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as one of his favorite films.
Accolades
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable"
|-
! scope="col" style="width:20em;"| Award/association
! scope="col" style="width:2em;"| Year
! scope="col" style="width:25em;"| Category
! scope="col" style="width:20em;"| Recipient(s) and nominee(s)
! scope="col"| Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable" style="width:1em;"|
|-
| rowspan="5"| Academy Awards
| rowspan="5"| 1963
| Best Actress
| Bette Davis
|
| rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor
| Victor Buono
|
|-
| Best Cinematography – Black-and-White
| Ernest Haller
|
|-
| Best Costume Design – Black-and-White
| Norma Koch
|
|-
| Best Sound
| Joseph D. Kelly
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| British Academy Film Awards
| rowspan="2"| 1963
| rowspan="2"| Best Foreign Actress
| Joan Crawford
|
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Bette Davis
|
|-
| Cannes Film Festival
| 1963
| Palme d'Or
| rowspan="2"| Robert Aldrich
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Directors Guild of America Awards
| 1963
| Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Golden Globe Awards
| rowspan="2"| 1963
| Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
| Bette Davis
|
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
| Victor Buono
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| Laurel Awards
| rowspan="2"| 1963
| Sleeper of the Year
| What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
|
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Top Female Dramatic Performance
| Bette Davis
|
|-
| Online Film & Television Association Awards
|
| Hall of Fame Award
| What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
|
| style="text-align:center;"|
|}
Legacy
The film's success spawned a succession of unrelated horror and thriller films featuring psychotic older women, later dubbed the "psycho-biddy" or "hagsploitation" subgenre. Among them are Aldrich's subsequent film which also starred Davis, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964); Lee H. Katzin's What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969); Curtis Harrington's Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) and What's the Matter with Helen? (1971).
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has been noted in the years since its release for its camp appeal. Steffen Hantke writes in Horror Film: Creating and Marketing Fear (2004) notes that the film's "camp effect of the film derives from the ways that the performances of Davis and Crawford are so intertwined with a specifically Hollywood brand of glamour. These two recognizable women are performing with the hyperbole of 1940s stars in a 1960s film." Judy Berman of Vice Media commented on the film's association with camp in 2017: "That Baby Jane is so often treated as pure camp while films with just as many goofy elements—like Hitchcock’s Psycho—end up on lists of the all-time greatest horror flicks probably comes down to sexism... Few films blur the line between “cult classic” and “canonical masterpiece” as thoroughly as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?."
In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Author Shaun Considine chronicled the alleged rivalry between Davis and Crawford, including their experience shooting this film, in the 1989 book Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud. Their broadly fictionalized backstage battle during the production of the film was also the basis for Ryan Murphy's 2017 miniseries Feud, which starred Jessica Lange as Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Davis. The alleged rivalry was also dramatized for BBC Radio 4 as Bette and Joan and Baby Jane (2010), starring Catherine Tate as Davis and Tracy-Ann Oberman as Crawford.
Cultural references
The film was parodied by the Italian comedy film What Ever Happened to Baby Toto? (1964).
In the Warner Bros.-produced horror film House of Wax (2005), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is shown screening on a continuous loop in a movie theater.
In 2000, Episode 20 of season 1 of Popular parodied the film in a dream, titling it "What Even Happened to Sam McPherson?".
In 2006, Christina Aguilera adopted a new alter ego called Baby Jane after Bette Davis' character in the film.
In season 2, episode 4 of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, the contestants were challenged to make parody sequels of RuPaul<nowiki>'s favorite films. A parody of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? called Wha' Ha' Happened to Baby JJ?</nowiki> was made by Alaska (as Davis) and Alyssa Edwards (as Crawford). Alaska won the challenge while Alyssa Edwards was eliminated.
Inspired by the film, British comedy duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders created the episode "Whatever Happened to Baby Dawn?" (1990) of their BBC sketch comedy series, and also starred in a radio series (written by David Quantick) about feuding sisters called Whatever Happened To Baby Jane Austen (2021).
In the film Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), Baby Jane Hudson makes an appearance as a spectator watching the Tune Squad battle the Goon Squad.
See also
- List of films featuring psychopaths and sociopaths
References
Sources
External links
- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? at AllMovie