"BABY JANE" REVISITED

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962). Director: Robert Aldrich.

"I hope you can be kinder to Jane and your father then they are to you."

Former child star Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis, pictured) shares a mansion in Hollywood with her crippled sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford), who was a big movie star in her day. When they begin showing her old movies on television, Jane gets the idea of reviving her own act -- but first she has to keep Blanche from selling the house out from under her, leading to grim events and tragedy.

Joan Crawford and Maidie Norman

While the subject matter with its mental illness and physical abuse is distasteful, Baby Jane is still a mesmerizing film, adroitly directed by Aldrich, well-made, and well-acted by the entire cast. Davis is simply superb as Jane (especially good when she collapses into horrified tears in front of her mirror); Crawford is solid but has the less flamboyant role. Victor Buono and Marjorie Bennett are great as Edwin Flagg and his mother. Maidie Norman and Anna Lee are also fine as, respectively, the Hudson's maid, Elvira, and pleasant neighbor, Mrs. Bates. (Davis' witchy religious nut daughter, B.D. Hyman, is barely acceptable as Lee's teen aged daughter; she had no subsequent career as an actress.) Ernest Anderson, who had an important role in In This Our Life, has a brief scene with Davis near the end of the film when he plays a food vendor at the beach. Baby Jane? is beautifully photographed by Ernest Haller. Write-ups of this film always refer to the "decaying" mansion the Hudson sisters live in, but it doesn't seem to be "decaying" -- like Jane's mind -- at all.

2020 UPDATE: Aldrich could have built up more suspense in certain sequences. Crawford doesn't quite pull out all the stops in her final scene, but then we have to remember she's supposed to be at death's door. A bank teller is played by Maxine Cooper of Kiss Me Deadly. Remade as a TV movie with the Redgrave sisters in 1990.

Verdict: Grotesque -- but it works. ***1/2.

SUSAN SLEPT HERE

Dick Powell

SUSAN SLEPT HERE (1954). Director: Frank Tashlin.

Screenwriter and bachelor Mark Christopher (Dick Powell of Pitfall) finds himself with an unusual Christmas "present." Two cops of his acquaintance want him to babysit a 17-year-old girl, Susan (Debbie Reynolds), over the holiday so they won't have to actually book her for some minor offense on Christmas Day. Mark reluctantly agrees but this causes problems for his sort of fiancee Isabella (Anne Francis), and upsets his household, which consists of secretary Maude (Glenda Farrell) and his old Navy buddy, Virgil (Alvy Moore). But is the middle-aged author more drawn to lovely, very young Susan than he would care to admit?

Farrell, Moore and Reynolds

One thing this comedy has going for it is some excellent performances. Debbie Reynolds, who was actually twenty-two at the time, is simply outstanding. Powell --fifty playing thirty-five but not getting away with it -- is no slouch, either. Farrell uses all she learned about acting since the thirties to make a distinct impression, and Moore manages to emerge an almost poignant figure, although his chief function is to get more laughs. Anne Francis also scores in the thankless role of the fiancee who is treated rather badly but whom Mark apparently never took seriously to begin with. Maidie Norman [What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?] and Les Tremayne [The Monolith Monsters] are also good as, respectively, Mark's maid and lawyer.

The characters at least seem a little more dimensional than in most comedies of this type, but that may be due to the performances. The picture goes on about twenty minutes too long, and there is a very tedious dream sequence in which Susan imagines Annabella literally snaring Mark in her web. (You would think that Powell and Reynolds would actually dance together, but they never really do.) Red Skelton has a funny cameo. This was Dick Powell's last theatrical film; he appeared strictly on television thereafter.

Verdict: Strangely appealing May-December romantic comedy that shouldn't work but does. ***.