Back in February, I wrote about the lifelong feud between Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, immortalized onscreen in The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943). This was a bitter and deep feud, but far less legendary than the well known animosity between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
Like many Hollywood feuds, it’s difficult to determine how much was fact and how much was manufactured by the press to sell magazines. By the 1950s, television was eating up an increasing share of the advertising pie, and the fan magazines crawled into the gutter to sell more copies.
As Shaun Considine writes in Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud:
“The private lives of stars, no matter how sacred, were no longer considered off-limits to interviewers and reporters, and Crawford, “Saint Joan of the Fan Mags” was one of the first to be burned at the tabloid stake.”
Crawford was crucified as phony, a poor actress who’d gotten by on looks that had gone to seed. And Bette Davis? Well, everyone knew she had talent but was plain crazy, a wrecking ball that destroyed anything and anyone that got in her way.
In one of Hollywood’s most inspired bits of casting, director Robert Aldrich had them face off in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, the story of a formerly beloved actress (Crawford) who’s now in a wheelchair and held prisoner by her sadistic sister (Davis).
The stories of the antics on the set of Jane are too good to fact check—that Davis installed a Coke vending machine (Crawford was married to the CEO of Pepsi), that Crawford filled her pockets with rocks when Davis had to drag her across the floor in a scene, that Davis intentionally kicked Crawford in the head during a scene where her character does the same.
It’s so juicy that in 2017 FX produced an eight episode miniseries about their feud and the making of Jane, starring Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford.
Baby Jane Hudson (Davis) is obsessed with her childhood, in which she traveled the country singing, gaining attention, and lording her status over her sister Blanche (Crawford). Soon the tables turn, as Davis grows up and into obscurity and Blanche becomes a bonafide movie star.
By the time we meet the sisters, Baby Jane has once again gained the upper hand. Blanche is permanently wheelchair-bound after an accident in which Baby Jane was driving. Jane “cares” for her invalid sister, but the two have become recluses and Jane begins an escalating campaign of torture against Blanche.
It’s a horror film, but the acting is so intentionally over-the-top it’s more funny than scary.
At least it’s always been funny to me.
I first found Baby Jane as a kid, and I couldn’t get enough of it. When Baby Jane cackles after she serves her sister a rat for lunch, it’s a terrible moment, but it’s also an uncomfortably funny one.
Bette Davis looks truly grotesque in the film, wearing thick white pancake makeup she made herself, and smeared on red lips. Her character runs around in pigtails and dresses like a doll, in spite of the fact that Davis was in her mid-fifties when she played the part.
Today, the film is cited as perhaps the first true example of hagsploitation, or films where older women are made as ugly as possible and run around scaring everyone and generally wreaking havoc.
Previously called witches.
There’s nothing new under the sun, folks.
I have two competing thoughts about Jane—first, the film was not the apex of Bette Davis’ or Joan Crawford’s career and shouldn’t be treated as such. If Jane is the only film you’ve seen starring these two women, please let it lead you to Mildred Pierce, Jezebel, A Woman’s Face, or Now, Voyager.
Second, don’t dismiss it as pure hagsploitation. It’s a fun film to watch, and I love that Crawford and Davis refused to be pushed off the stage into bit parts or retirement.
If the choice was to play hags above the title or the wise woman in the background, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford chose the hag every single time.
And damn if I don’t love them for it.
Sources
- Spoto, Donald. Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford
- Sikov, Ed. Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis
- Considine, Shaun. Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud
Want more? Click here for an index of all posts in the series, as well as source notes and suggested readings
I told my mother I was organising wraps for dinner last night, and she said “Rats?” as if I was likely to serve up rats as an evening meal. For lunch is a different matter, but I wouldn’t take cookery tips from this film. Totally agree it’s not the apex of anyone involved, but it’s a great example of how to manage a comeback when it seemed impossible…
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford together…..movie magic!