Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

An old southern mansion is slated to be demolished but the loony shut-in (Bette Davis) who lives there isn’t playing nice. Her trusty doctor (Joseph Cotten) and her cousin (Olivia de Havilland) offer their guidance while Charlotte goes completely off the rails.

Back story: young Charlotte’s domineering dad disapproves of her running off with a married man (Bruce Dern). When the breakup he engineered goes bad (read: the head was never found), Charlotte is presumed to be the killer. So hide in the spooky mansion she does.

Hush Hush has a few things in common with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane made two years earlier, besides the hag-like Bette Davis in a spooky house. First, they both were directed by Robert Aldrich, who is totally not Robert Altman. Not even a little. Secondly, the Cousin Miriam character was initially played by Joan Crawford. In fact her arrival scene is still included in the final print, before she is visible. Crawford and Davis’ notorious animosity made that pairing unworkable and Aldrich made a trek to the Swiss mountains to convince de Havilland to replace her.

Endora herself Agnes Moorehead was wonderful as a nutty housekeeper. Very different role than what I’ve seen her in before. Victim of 2016 George Kennedy had a small role. Mary Astor appears in her final role. Big Daddy was played by King Tut himself Victor Buono, who also appeared in Baby Jane.

Because style and setting were so similar to Baby Jane, had Crawford stayed in the film it almost would read like a sequel. And part of me would want to see that film. As it stands, it has an excellent story, excellent acting (save Cotten’s terrible accent), and an all around first class production. But I give it a half tick lower. Maybe if I had seen it first … AMRU 4

No comments:

Post a Comment