What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

In Robert Aldrich’s Hollywood-gothic shocker WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, two elderly sisters are engaged in psychological warfare in a dilapidated Hollywood mansion. Bette Davis plays Baby Jane Hudson, a former lead child in a vaudeville act, who desperately holds onto her waning celebrity status, while Joan Crawford plays her sister Blanche, a former movie star now wheelchair-bound from an unknown accident. As Jane struggles to maintain her realities, she increasingly subjects Blanche to sadistic psychological tortures, feeding her dead rats for lunch, and imprisoning her in their crumbling Gothic-style home in Los Angeles.

As part of our Queer As Cult series, this campy, grotesque classic was a landmark in queer cinema, a cult fave for its over-the-top performances, a meditation on aging female stars who have been discarded by Hollywood, and the sensational feuding between the two stars. Davis and Crawford’s over-acting (and uninhibited makeup) and visceral cruelty turned a potential formula thriller into high camp art. It was instrumental in birthing the "hagsploitation" sub-genre and has been absorbed by generations of queer audiences who see in its catastrophe, extravagance, and obstinate refusal to simply “go gentle into that good night”.