Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Following the success of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Robert Aldrich and Bette Davis re-teamed two years later for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. (Joan Crawford was originally cast but was replaced by Olivia de Havilland.) But how does it compare to the more famous title?

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte is more sinister than the earlier film in spots. But instead of Davis as the abuser, here she's the victim. (It is strange to see her in a more helpless situation.) However, her Charlotte Hollis has a shared trait with Jane Hudson: vainly grasping at days passed.

In fact, there are several connecting factors between Aldrich's two films besides their leading lady. Both What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte recruit actors whose careers may not have been what they once were. (Okay, Agnes Moorehead being the sole exception because of Bewitched.) Perhaps that started the trend of star-studded pictures the following decade?

Back to that aspect mentioned earlier. Both Charlotte and Jane try to reclaim the past while at the same time slowly lose their grip on reality. (While Jane wants to be in the spotlight once more, Charlotte yearns for the days before her lover was brutally murdered.) But life just throws many curveballs at both of them.

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte shows that sometimes the best kind of horror doesn't always require blood, guts and gore to make it work. A little bit of gaslighting works just as well too. (Man, imagine how much more terrifying it would've been had Davis and de Havilland swapped roles?)

My Rating: ****1/2

Kiss Me Deadly

Film noirs from the 1950s pretty much broke all of the ethical rules. Why not since everyone was so paranoid about communism and nuclear warfare? Might as well let Hollywood go a little crazy too.

Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly is one such film noir. Based on the novel by Mickey Spillane, this has more pulp than an orange. And it's sleazier than anything else the decade had to offer. (Yes, even more than Ace in the Hole and Sweet Smell of Success.)

Many of the sci-fi titles of the 1950s were thinly disguised movies about the Cold War. Kiss Me Deadly also provides that commentary. Aldrich sensationalizes it to the nth degree, and it just works.

Is Kiss Me Deadly an exploitation film? Not really, though it could be viewed as one under certain circumstances. After all, there are no definitive heroes in this, and the villains are just as bad as the "hero" morally.

Kiss Me Deadly is quite good, though it gets to be a bit much after a short while. Bear in mind this was made in a period of Hollywood where happy endings were always expected regardless of what happened in the film. Does Kiss Me Deadly have one? I won't say that, but I will say it's a real doozy of an ending.

My Rating: ****1/2

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

By now everyone knows of the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, which started with a simple love triangle between them and Franchot Tone. I still wonder how Robert Aldrich got them in the movie without any problems.

The other movie I saw Davis in was All About Eve. Her role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is similar to her role in All About Eve: a once-famous name of the stage not willing to slip into obscurity. And even though Davis is a villain in this, it's also tragic to see Jane lose her fleeting fame and eventually her mind.

As for Crawford, the other movie I saw her in was Mildred Pierce. Again, the roles were similar: a woman whose life is under the control of another selfish woman. Her Blanche is similar to Mildred in the sense that both women are easily manipulated by the other (Blanche to Jane, Mildred to Veda), which in hindsight isn't exactly a good thing.

It's hard to say which of the two is better, but I'm leaning towards Davis for the creepiness of her role. It appears like a campy movie on the surface, but under that thin veneer lies a damn good psychological thriller.

My Rating: *****