\u00a0Introduction<\/p>\n
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?<\/em> was adapted from Henry Farrell’s 1960 novel of the same name. The story takes place in a once-fashionable part of Hollywood where two sisters share a dilapidated gothic mansion. ‘Baby’ Jane Hudson was a child star in cinema’s very early days, while Blanche’s heyday was\u00a0as a movie queen during\u00a0the\u00a01930s. The sisters are now forced to live together, partly due to a serious accident which has left Blanche wheelchair-bound, and their unhealthy and violent relationship forms the core of the film.<\/p>\n The casting of two of 1930s Holly <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n My analysis of the AFI Catalog shows that\u00a0What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0was one of 52 melodramas released in 1962. Interestingly, the 1960s showed an upsurge in the production of\u00a0American produced melodramas.\u00a0In the 1950s melodramas accounted for 147 films or 4.77% of all American films produced. In the 1960s this had risen to 529 and\u00a022.60%. This does not quite hit the heights of the 1920s (a staggering 2230 or 33.16%) or the 1930s when 434 melodramas (constituting a fairly low 8.14%) were produced. But it is significantly more than in the 1940s (108 or 2.47%)\u00a0or the 1950s figured quoted above. It might be especially fruitful for us to ponder why this might be the case. Especially as Douglas Sirk’s 1950s melodramas are so often the focus of academic work on melodrama.<\/p>\n Recent scholarly work on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?<\/em> has focused on\u00a0issues\u00a0of aging, stardom and disability, matters we might well find it interesting to ponder. The articles\/chapters include:<\/p>\n Sally Chivers. “Baby Jane Grew Up: The Dramatic Intersection of Age with Disability.” Canadian Review of American Studies<\/i> 36.2 (2006): 211-228. (See our additional blog: http:\/\/melodramaresearchgroupextra.wordpress.com\/<\/a>\u00a0for more details.)<\/p>\n Anne Morey. “Grotesquerie as marker of success in aging female stars.” In the limelight and under the microscope: forms and functions of female celebrity<\/i> (2011). (See our additional blog: http:\/\/melodramaresearchgroupextra.wordpress.com\/<\/a>\u00a0for more details.)<\/p>\n Also visit the additional blog for more details of Variety’s<\/em> review.<\/p>\n Access the (fairly\u00a0non-spoilery)\u00a0trailer on archive.org: https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/WhateverHappenedToBabyJane-Trailer<\/a><\/p>\n Do join us, if you can, for a classic 1960s melodrama with two superb performances from major 1930s female Hollywood stars.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> The budget for the film was $1,025,000 according to Alain Silver and James Ursini, Whatever Happened to Robert Aldrich?<\/i>, Limelight, 1995 p 256. Box Office Information for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?<\/i><\/a> IMDb<\/a>. The $9 million figure relates to worldwide grossed.\u00a0Retrieved 22 October 2013.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> http:\/\/afi.chadwyck.com\/about\/genre.htm<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bibliography\u00a0and suggested further reading<\/p>\n The American Film Institute (AFI)\u00a0Catalog: http:\/\/www.afi.com\/members\/catalog\/<\/a><\/p>\n The Internet Movie Database: www.imdb.com<\/a><\/p>\n Posted by Sarah All are welcome to attend the\u00a0third of this term\u2019s screening and discussion\u00a0sessions which will take place on the\u00a030th of\u00a0October in Keynes Seminar Room 6,\u00a0from 4pm to 7pm. We will be screening What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? … Continue reading ![\"Baby](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/melodramaresearchgroup\/files\/2013\/10\/Baby-Jane-hall.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>wood’s greatest female\u00a0stars – \u00a0Bette Davis and Joan Crawford – <\/em>in the roles of the Hudson sisters provoked comment at the time. For example, both\u00a0the film’s trailer and Variety’s<\/em> review find the teaming of the stars significant. The trailer touches on the matter of star image as it warns the potential audience that\u00a0What Ever Happened to Baby Jane<\/em>? \u00a0does not resemble the pair’s previous (separate) films.\u00a0Meanwhile, Variety<\/em> opines that the casting of\u00a0Davis and Crawford in retrospect seems like a ‘veritable prerequisite to putting Henry Farrell’s slight tale of terror on the screen’. It certainly led to great returns at the box office: the relatively low budget (just over $1 million) film grossed $9 million.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>The film’s production has earned its place in Hollywood folklore in the intervening years. This is\u00a0primarily due to the assertion that this marked the\u00a0culmination of Davis and Crawford’s\u00a0long-running, and some might say melodramatic, feud.\u00a0Like many Hollywood stories though, this is only partially true.\u00a0Several sources note the one-upmanship that took place during filming. For example, Bob Thomas’ biography of Crawford details some of the\u00a0‘conflict’ between the stars (pp. 224-229). Charlotte Chandler’s ‘personal’ biography of Crawford concludes that the ‘legendary feud between the two may have been just that – a legend’ dreamed up by Baby Jane’s<\/em> publicity people which the stars both ended up believing (p. 248). Whenever the feud started, and for whatever reason, Davis had very definite ideas about a sequel to the film: “I’ll tell you the first scene. It’ll be a scene of this<\/em> one,’ pointing at herself, ‘putting flowers on that<\/em> one’s grave” (p. 250). (A\u00a0follow-up film\u00a0Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte,<\/em> was made in 1964 –\u00a0but with Olivia de Havilland replacing an ill Crawford part-way through).That\u00a0until Baby Jane<\/em> Crawford was not really on Davis’\u00a0 radar is supported by Davis’ autobiography The Lonely Life, <\/em>published in 1962, which does not even mention Crawford. Davis rectifies this, with relish, in her 1987\u00a0post Baby Jane <\/em>memoir\u00a0This ‘n That.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/a>Regardless of any melodramatic off-screen tales\u00a0surrounding What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?<\/em> the American Film Institute (AFI)\u00a0Catalog\u00a0categorises the film text as melodrama. The AFI defines melodramas as ‘fictional films that revolve around suffering protagonists victimized by situations or events related to social distinctions, family and\/or sexuality, emphasizing emotion’.\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/div>\n
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