page_title: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (film)
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (film) / Plot
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Joan Crawford from the film Category:Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (film)
context_page_description: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a 1962 American psychological horror thriller film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The plot concerns an aging former actress who holds her paraplegic ex-movie star sister captive in an old Hollywood mansion. The screenplay by Lukas Heller is based on the 1960 novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? by Henry Farrell. Upon the film's release, it was met with widespread critical and box office acclaim and was later nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design, Black and White.
  The intensely bitter Hollywood rivalry between the film's two stars, Davis and Crawford, was heavily important to the film's initial success. This in part led to the revitalization of the careers of the two stars. In the years after release, critics continued to acclaim the film for its psychologically driven black comedy, camp, and creation of the psycho-biddy subgenre. The film's novel and controversial plot meant that it originally received an X rating in the UK. Because of the appeal of the film's stars, Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times has identified it as being a "cult classic".
context_section_description: In 1917, "Baby Jane" Hudson is a spoiled and capricious child actress who performs in vaudeville theatres across the country with her father, who acts as her manager and accompanies her on stage as a pianist. Her success is such that a line of porcelain dolls is made in her image. Meanwhile, her shy older sister Blanche lives in her shadow and is treated with contempt by the haughty Jane. As the sisters pass adolescence, their situations undergo a reversal; Jane's style of performing falls out of fashion, and her career declines as she descends into alcoholism, while Blanche becomes an acclaimed Hollywood actress. Mindful of a promise made to their mother, Blanche attempts to maintain a semblance of a career for Jane, going as far as to impose on producers to guarantee a number of acting roles for her. One evening in 1935, Blanche's career is cut short when she is paralyzed from the waist down in a mysterious car accident that is unofficially blamed on Jane, who is found three days later in a drunken stupor.
  In 1962, Blanche and Jane are living together in a mansion purchased with Blanche's movie earnings. Blanche's mobility is limited by a wheelchair and the lack of an elevator to her upstairs bedroom. Jane, psychotic and resentful of Blanche's success, regularly mistreats Blanche and prepares to revive her old act with hired pianist Edwin Flagg. When Blanche informs Jane she intends to sell the house, Jane rightly suspects Blanche will commit her to a psychiatric hospital once the house is sold. She removes the telephone from Blanche's bedroom, cutting her off from the outside world. During Jane's absence, Blanche desperately drags herself down the stairs and calls her doctor for help. Jane returns to find Blanche on the phone and beats her unconscious before mimicking Blanche's voice to dismiss the doctor. After tying Blanche to her bed and locking her in her room, Jane abruptly fires their maid Elvira when she comes to the house. While Jane is away, the suspicious Elvira sneaks into the house and attempts to access Blanche's room. Concerned by the lack of a response, Elvira tries to break open the door with a hammer. Jane returns home and reluctantly gives Elvira the key. As soon as Elvira enters Blanche's room, Jane takes the hammer and kills Elvira.
  A few days later, the police call to tell Jane that Elvira's cousin has reported her missing. Jane panics and prepares to leave, taking Blanche with her. Before they can leave, an inebriated Edwin casually enters the house and discovers Blanche bound to her bed. Edwin flees and notifies the authorities. Jane, in a fit of infantile regression, takes Blanche to a beach where she sang as a child, attracting the attention of nearby beach-goers. Blanche — lying starved, dehydrated and near death on a blanket — confesses to Jane that she is paraplegic through her own fault: on the night of the accident, Blanche tried to run Jane over because she was angry at Jane for mocking her at a party earlier that night. Blanche's spine broke when her car struck the iron gates outside their mansion, and she dragged herself in front of the car's hood to stage the accident and frame Jane. Blanche took advantage of Jane's shock and subsequent bender removing the real dynamics of the accident from her mind, and subjected Jane to a life of guilt, loneliness and servitude. After Jane buys ice cream for herself and Blanche from a nearby kiosk, she is recognized by two police officers, who ask her to lead them to Blanche. Jane dodges the officers' inquiry and dances before a crowd of bemused onlookers, while the officers find Blanche and rush to confirm her condition.
caption: Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson
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