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» Features » Maguffin » Reviews
| THE MAGUFFIN Bitch fight! Kathy Hofmeyr
Last Sunday night the Johannesburg Classic Film Society was treated to one of the darkest films of the 1960s: Robert Aldrich’s ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ Aldrich had gained renown for his work on ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ and ‘The Angry Hills’ when he helmed the picture, and would go on to make ‘The Dirty Dozen’. Having worked his way up the ranks, Aldrich was acutely aware of the occupational hazards of filmmaking. He said, “A director is a ringmaster, a psychiatrist and a referee.” In the case of ‘Baby Jane’, these words were closer to truth than to metaphor. The premise is simple: Jane, a nasty and petulant young child star arouses the jealousy of her older, plainer sister Blanche. When they grow up, Blanche becomes the biggest star in Hollywood while her sibling fades to a bit-part ham floozy with a drinking problem. On their way home after an industry party one night, the girls are involved in a motor accident which cripples Blanche and for which Jane is held responsible. The rest of the film is the story of the two sisters, now in their fifties and living under the same roof in what may very well be the fifth ring of hell. Jane, played by Bette Davis, has never got over the loss of her childhood stardom – in fact, has never outgrown her childhood at all – and as a result has grown into a flabby, crass and thoroughly unhinged middle-aged woman still clothed in sundresses and pinafores with her hair in ringlets. Blanche (Joan Crawford) remains elegant and beautiful, but confined to her wheelchair she depends entirely on her spiteful sister for meals and errands. The back story is legend. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were rivals in every way – professionally, romantically, socially… and they loathed each other. The banter exchanged between the two women over the years was no less acerbic for all its bitchy, Parker-esque wit. Both were major stars of the 30s and 40s – Bette at Warner Brothers, Joan at MGM; they had similar taste in men – often identical, in fact; both became gay icons and both had scathing exposés written about them by their daughters (‘Mommy Dearest’ by Christina Crawford and ‘My Mother’s Keeper’ by Barbara Davis). Davis famously said of Crawford that “she’s slept with every male star at MGM, except Lassie.” Crawford responded by saying of Davis that “I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms, instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words and what have you got? She's phoney, but I guess the public really likes that.” They had different qualities. While Davis was attractive, she was never a beauty, but what she lacked in aesthetics she made up for in sheer talent. Joan Crawford, on the other hand, was glamour personified – the very definition of “movie star”. Later in life she achieved acclaim as an actress, however, in ‘Mildred Pierce’. When she was offered the role of Blanche Hudson, Crawford accepted on the condition that her lifelong arch-rival be cast as the venomous younger sister Jane. No doubt hoping to outshine the frumpy and crazed Bette, Crawford padded her bra and set to work creating her character as a put-upon and long-suffering victim, tortured and starved and beaten by the cruel Gorgon Jane. Instead of trying to compete, however, Bette Davis opted for contrast. She insisted on doing her own makeup for the character of Jane – to enormous effect. Jane’s face is a ghoulish parody of the baby-doll makeup her child self wears during her Vaudeville glory days – white face; bright, overdone lips; round, rouged apple-cheeks and far too much eye makeup. The result is, as one critic put it, a gash of a mouth that looks as though it has been applied in the morning with a straight razor and eyes that appear so sunken as to be almost hollow. Davis’s portrayal of Jane does not end with the makeup. Like Norman and Mrs Bates, the malicious child and the sinister old drunk occupy a single body, each speaking in her own voice in turns (although, of course, Jane is under no illusions as to her identity). Davis is at once horrifying and humorous, serving her sister her own dead canary on a silver platter and then growing nasty “because you didn’t eat your din-din”. She sings the most mawkish, sentimental, inappropriate songs for her age (‘I’m writing a letter to Daddy/His address is Heaven above…’) in a cracked and croaky voice, complete with tippy-toe dance steps and a curtsey bobbed at the end. In the final analysis, Crawford winds up as mere furniture. At times we forget she is even there, so camp and histrionic is Davis’s portrayal. Baby Jane rolls up the film, sticks it under her arm and walks off with it, and if one even remembers one is tempted to ask, “What ever happened to that other old lady dying upstairs?” The stories of on-set rivalry are part of Hollywood history. Joan Crawford’s late husband Alfred Steele had been the CEO of Pepsi-Cola and Joan was on the board of directors. Knowing it would upset her co-star, Bette Davis had a Coke machine installed on set. During the filming of the famous scene in which she finds Blanche trying to telephone for help, having painstakingly edged herself out of her wheelchair and down the stairs, Davis reportedly kicked Crawford in the head, causing a wound that required several stitches. In retaliation, Crawford filled her pockets with lead weights so that while filming the next shot, Davis strained her back dragging her out of the room and towards the stairs. Davis was disdainful of Crawford’s diva-like behaviour on set. Crawford exploited her movie-star status from every angle – from demanding that her dressing room be redecorated to insisting that her character retain some of the “Joan Crawford glamour”. The film, with its decaying mansion, hopeless dreams of lost youth, faded glitter and stardom past resuscitation, is reminiscent of Billy Wilder’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ of twelve years earlier. But ‘Baby Jane’ is no cheap pastiche – for all that it shares many themes and character types with ‘Blvd’, it is a darker, funnier and very different film. If ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is a classic, ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ is a cult film. ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is a film noir, of higher status than Aldrich’s movie. ‘Baby Jane’ has more in common with the horror genre – it is high camp, its central character an over-the-top gargoyle who dreams of regaining her lost stardom but is forceful, violent, suspicious and calculating. In Stanley Peskin’s words, it is a “cannibal feast” – a perfectly apt epithet. Two years later Aldrich followed ‘Baby Jane’ with ‘Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte’, a story with many similarities to ‘Baby Jane’, this time starring Davis as the victim of a scheming, jealous relative played by the still-beautiful Olivia de Havilland. Crawford had been slated to take the role, but she pulled out on dubious medical grounds. Although it is less celebrated than its precursor, ‘Sweet Charlotte’ is an excellent film, and Davis’s performance is better, subtler and utterly convincing. It is possible, of course, that the stories of the rivalry were pure fairy-dust, urban legends told to bolster the intrigue surrounding the film. Bette Davis herself claimed that "Feud is a Hollywood word, a wildly overused Hollywood word. Did Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ever feud during the filming of ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’? No! Like, dislike-these were not words I applied to Miss Crawford. Until we were cast as the co-stars of ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’, I knew her only slightly. Our paths had seldom crossed, even though for three years we had adjoining dressing rooms at Warners. In truth I did not know her any better after the film was completed. Twenty years after we had worked together, and half a dozen years after her death, we are still a team in the public's mind.” It is possible, certainly. But then what fun would that be? We viewers love to have our cannibal appetites sated by the dramas we hear and read about – the film itself isn’t enough, there must also be romance, rivalry – at the very least practical jokes going on behind the scenes. Davis’s denials are adequately explained by her daughter in ‘My Mother’s Keeper’: “It was beneath them to compete with each other. Both felt so superior that they couldn't acknowledge their hatred, let alone express it.” Perhaps. But the film world is that much more fascinating for having contained a woman who once said, “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.” And I shall defend to the death my right to believe that she did. The Johannesburg Classic Film Society meets on the third Sunday of every month. For more information contact Stanley or Hennie on (011) 486 1000. | | |
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