What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (12A)

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Anthony Quinn Author Biography

Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn is The Independent's Film Critic.

More articles from this journalist

Thursday 13 December 2012

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A camp horror classic (1962) with ice in its veins. Alien vs Predator never got as savage as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford playing rival sisters in a domestic dance of death.

Did either actress realise how grotesque they would be made to seem by Robert Aldrich's direction and Lukas Heller's script? If they did then it's tribute to their professional chops, because this is Hollywood on Hollywood at its cruellest – Davis's make-up gives her the look of a wizened ghoul playing clown for the day.

Shot in black and white, it may also have echoed the gothic terrors of Psycho two years before, with good reason.

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