![]() ![]() Unfortunately, Aldrich pulls his best shock first and leaves one waiting half the rest of the picture to get to more. ![]() The graphic decapitation and hacking up of Bruce Dern in the pre-credits opening is sensational stuff. Robert Aldrich pulls some fairly strong shocks. In fact, Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte is, on the whole, a better film than What Ever Happened to Baby Jane was. The shooting of Joseph Cotten is stolen from Les Diaboliques (1955) and coincidence is stretched somewhat – but it is still light years ahead of the tawdry William Castle and Jimmy Sangster competition that was being made around the same time. Tacked onto the formula is also a subtext about the Fall of the South – Sweet Charlotte is almost Tennessee Williams Gothic. Sweet Charlotte also reuses much of the same formula of Baby Jane – the victim suffering most of their life for a crime they didn’t commit the big, old house as a dark, gloomy hold of secrets and a symbol of mental decay and the corpulent sensationalism in watching the physical destruction of former box-office stars, particularly here that of once silent screen star Mary Astor. ![]() Davis apparently went out of her way to taunt and upstage Crawford at every opportunity – Crawford responded by signing into hospital, claiming illness, where she stayed for several weeks, causing the stalled film’s budget to wildly escalate before the studio made the decision to fire Crawford and replace her with Olivia de Havilland. The Baby Jane connection is something that would have been even further emphasised by the recasting of Joan Crawford.Īlas, Sweet Charlotte befell the bitter rivalry between the dueling egos of Davis and Crawford. Here Aldrich returns to the formula that made Baby Jane a success, bringing back stars Bette Davis and Victor Buono, screenwriter Lukas Heller, musician Frank De Vol and art director William Glasgow. Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte was director Robert Aldrich’s follow-up to his previous hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). ![]()
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