I must confess I was disappointed with this: it is a well-known movie by an excellent director (Robert Aldrich) that enjoys a high reputation but I found it overlong, ponderous and ineffective. For some reason, I had come to believe that it was a classic gothic horror in which two equally vile old hags holed up in a crumbling mansion treat each other spectacularly badly. So I was surprised to find it set in a relatively modern house, in a pleasant suburb of (presumably) Los Angeles, with neighbours, housemaids, and so on. And I was equally surprised to find that the Joan Crawford character, Blanche - Baby Jane Hudson's sister, was a rather pitiable figure.
Perhaps it's because my preconceptions were wrong that I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Maybe, maybe not. Even if that is true, the film is still way too long and contains far too little incident to justify such extravagance. Even the famous scenes - such as Jane serving Blanche something unexpected for her dinner - seem tame.
I think the film's chief interest today lies in the casting and performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as the two sisters. Crawford has by no mean a flattering part but next to Bette Davis it's a doozy. It's a fearless performance from Davis who spends much of the time as a hateful slattern, half dressed in inappropriate clothes. But she's so good she manages to elicit some sympathy for Jane, a sympathy which turns out to be entirely justified when she and the audience get to know the whole truth about her sister ...
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