Follow ups to these kinds of successes are inevitable today,
but less so in the early sixties. Nevertheless, Aldrich, Davis, and Baby Jane co-star Joan Crawford schemed
to work together on a similar project ultimately titled Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. The actresses would play different
characters but resume their Gothic histrionics and onscreen rivalry. The
off-screen ones continued too, and unable to deal with star and co-producer
Davis’s nastiness any longer, Crawford “fell ill,” causing her to bail long
after production had started. In stepped Davis’s good buddy Olivia de Havilland
to fill Crawford’s clogs.
It’s probably unfair to compare two films that aren’t even
really sequels, but it’s pretty impossible not to weigh Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte against What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and not find the follow up to be a
touch lacking. De Havilland simply does not have Crawford’s gravity, and though
she does manage to generate some sparks facing off against Davis, they don’t
quite ignite as they did in the earlier picture. The Gaslight-meets-William Castle-meets Scooby Doo story is much more conventional than the pioneering
child-star-gone-bad plot of Baby Jane.
Davis is Charlotte Hollis, whose beau (a very fleeting Bruce Dern) had been
butchered with a kitchen cleaver 36 years earlier. Now she’s a middle-aged
woman still haunted by the murder most folks assume she committed. When the
Louisiana Highway Commission informs her of plans to build a bridge through her
beloved antebellum mansion, Charlotte calls on the assistance of her cousin
Miriam (de Havilland), who turns out to have designs on the mansion, herself.
While its story is very different, Hush…Hush does share Baby
Jane’s one significant flaw: it’s about 30 minutes too long. And
without any of the truly memorable set pieces of the earlier film (no rat
supper this time, though there are a few memorable reappearances of Dern’s
severed head and some eerie late-night haunting scenes, one of which involves a fairly freaky hallucination), it is a long and
pretty talky two hours and thirteen minutes.
But maybe we should let the comparisons die there, because
taken on its own, Hush…Hush, Sweet
Charlotte has a lot of wonderful things going for it too, the most obvious
being Davis, who gets to go cuckoo as only she could in the starring role. She also gets to play vulnerable, terrified, defiantly dignified, and even romantic with equal mastery. And
though de Havilland has no chance to steal this show, Agnes Moorehead very
nearly does as Charlotte’s slovenly, slurring housekeeper who expresses
explicit and delicious disdain for every snooty fool who passes through the
lush Hollis mansion.
Hush…Hush is also
a marvelous looking picture, with shadowy, Southern gothic cinematography from
Joseph Biroc, whose diverse c.v. includes It’s
a Wonderful Life, 13 Ghosts, and Blazing Saddles. That cinematography
looks stunning on Twilight Time’s flawless new blu-ray of Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Utterly organic, beautifully
high-contrast, and devoid of a single blemish, this is a sumptuous
presentation. The disc also compiles all extras from the film’s previous two
DVD incarnations: the commentary with film historian Glenn Erickson from the
2005 edition and the twenty-minute making-of doc and twelve-minute interview
with Dern from the 2008 one. Twilight Time adds two choice new features: a
commentary between historians Steve Peros and David Del Valle (so charming in
his recent commentary for TT’s edition of Theatre
of Blood) and a vintage four-minute promo/making-of short with overwrought
narration from co-star Joseph Cotten. Get it here.
