BEFORE: Bette Davis carries over for the last time, and I start a 3-night Joan Crawford chain at the same time. This sort of reads like a creepy horror film, so perhaps it's a good precursor to what's coming up later in the month.
THE PLOT: A former child star torments her crippled sister in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
AFTER: In its own way, this seems like a precursor to "Misery", where one person keeps another one captive in a house, while simultaneously admiring them and also treating them like dirt. But it's so much more personal when you add in the sibling rivalry - Jane feels beholden to Blanche, but also despises her talent and fame. She can't bring herself to kill her, but neither can she let her leave the house. She wants to keep her safe, but also wants to starve and torture her. Psychologically, there's a lot going on here.
It all goes back to when they were children, and Baby Jane was a hit on the vaudeville scene, a singing and dancing and piano-playing prodigy. But when the women were in their twenties, they worked in Hollywood and Blanche was the more successful actress - the producers only hired the less screen-friendly Jane because Blanche's contract required it.
I would suppose that there are a ton of actors and actresses who are not seen frequently these days - for every Joan Rivers or Mickey Rooney who kept working well into their 80's there are probably a dozen Hollywood legends who just dropped off the map - whether this was because the roles dried up or their faces did, it's not for me to say. And then you have to wonder if they're all living quietly in suburbia somewhere, or in some kind of Hollywood nursing home.
Then along comes a film like this that suggests that not everything is perfect in the life after stardom - some people get all withdrawn and bitter like Norma Desmond, and who knows what's going on in their modest-looking houses? Still, I feel like this film maybe didn't take things far enough - so Blanche can't use the phone and has no contact with the outside world - things could be worse, right? Jane seems awfully misguided, but I never got the sense that she was acting evil. Deranged perhaps, but not malicious. OK, maybe a little.
Also starring Joan Crawford (last seen in "Love on the Run"), Victor Buono (last seen in "Robin and the 7 Hoods"), Wesley Addy, Maidie Norman, Robert Cornthwaite.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Keane paintings
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