Whatever else it may turn out to be, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is certainly one of the most fascinating and unusual cinema items of the year, and one that will capture a huge amount of publicity and comment.
80
EmpireDavid Parkinson
EmpireDavid Parkinson
Sour as month-old milk and with a tang of off-screen animosity in its mouth, Robert Aldrich's melodrama is still hysterical in every sense of the word.
75
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
That undeniable off-screen friction only helps grease the wheels of the film’s compulsive forward momentum, supplying a crackling energy to scenes wherein, among other gothic horrors, pet birds are served up for supper with relish.
I can't help thinking that the most interesting things happen in the precredit sequence - the fraught childhood, Blanche's sinister "accident" - but it's still vivid, barnstorming stuff.
The feeble attempts that Mr. Aldrich has made to suggest the irony of two once idolized and wealthy females living in such depravity and the pathos of their deep-seated envy having brought them to this, wash out very quickly under the flood of sheer grotesquerie. There is nothing particularly moving or significant about these two.