Star Wars, Trenchantly Served -- The End of Hollywood's Golden Age

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962, Robert Aldrich) 

Bette Davis (Baby Jane Hudson) was 54 when she made Baby Jane and her motion picture career had pretty much ground to a halt (Frank Capra’s disappointed remake of his Lady For A Day – Pocket Full of Miracles being a rare exception) and was mostly doing guest shots on television. She even filled in for Raymond Burr on "Perry Mason" when he was having a dispute with CBS. Her nemesis (as Hollywood legend has it) Joan Crawford (Blanche Hudson) was 57 and pretty much suffering the same fate. Both Oscar winners, but no longer box-office draws took on what could have been a real freak show of a movie playing old time child starts who live alone in an old Hollywood mansion forgotten by their once adoring public; not exactly art imitating life, but not far from it. Bette Davis went on to win her last AA nomination and Crawford was not nominated, but she had the last laugh when Anne Bancroft won the Oscar that year (The Miracle Worker) and in her absence Joan accepted the award at the ceremony. The movie was an enormous success and ushered in a wave of old time movie stars making horror pictures (in fact Bette teamed with Aldrich two years later to make Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte along with Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten). Crawford’s career basically consisted of horror fare going forward -- Strait-Jacket 1964, I Saw What You Did 1965 and Berserk 1967 to name a few. A relative newcomer, Victor Buono successfully chews the scenery with the two grand dames and even steals a few scenes as a creepy
conman after their money. Buono collected his single Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor and the eye of Frank Sinatra. Frank saw the character Buono played, a creepy lug of a Baby Hughey man and cast him in all the parts that had been set for Peter Lawford in future Rat Pack movies (Robin and the Seven Hoods and Four For Texas). Something that no doubt rubbed salt in Peter’s wounds after his falling out with Frank. Robert Aldrich was also on the career skids compared to his glory in the mid 1950’s -- Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955) and Autumn Leaves (1956) also with Crawford. Aldrich continues to be an underrated director, also helming The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) and The Dirty Dozen (1967), before trying to reinvent himself with The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968). What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? scared the hell out of me when I was a kid and today it still creeps me out. Curious fact: Barbara Merrill plays the daughter of the pesky woman who lives next door to the Hudson’s, in real life she was Bette’s daughter.