“You mean, all this time, we could’ve been friends?” As Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? draws to a close on the beach of Santa Monica, this is the line Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) finds herself asking of her younger sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford), after she tells Jane that she wasn’t the one responsible for crippling Blanche. That, in and of itself, is a minimal example of the tortured and sadistic relationship that is shared between the sisters Hudson.
In the time of vaudeville, acts and personas that would eventually, during other periods, be considered more of a kitsch novelty were allowed to thrive by the tastes of then current audiences. It is in this entertainment climate that Baby Jane Hudson thrives. As the film opens in the year of 1917, we see Baby Jane has sold out an entire show and, from the looks of it, does so often. Her popularity even warrants a life-size Baby Jane doll, somewhat overpriced–by 1917 standards–at $3.25.
While performing “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy,” a song that takes on far more macabre overtones later in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Jane’s sister watches her coldly from the side of the stage, clearly jealous of Jane’s spotlight and perhaps wishing she could have the same favor that her father so obviously showers onto Baby Jane. This discrepancy in affection fanned the flame of Blanche’s envy and would propel her to become a star in her own right.
As Baby Jane grows into plain Jane, Blanche grows into a glamorous movie star of the 1930s. And, even though Blanche could have easily cast off Jane as the dead weight that she was, the words her mother had once told her influenced her sympathetic stance toward her surly sister: “Someday it’s going to be you that’s getting all the attention. And when that happens, I want you to try and be kinder to Jane and your father than they are to you now.” With this advice in mind, Blanche puts a clause in her film contract stating that, for every film she makes, her sister must have a part to play as well, regardless of how talentless she has become as an adult (the main complaint is her voice, though, admittedly, she is certainly attractive enough to be on the silver screen).
Blanche’s place in the sun is short-lived, however, after a car accident in 1935, presumably caused by Jane, that leaves her crippled and wheelchair bound. Once this ambiguous scene depicting the accident is captured, the story flashes forward to the present, 1962, and reveals the rapport between Jane and Blanche to be more ominous than ever. Jane is relegated to the role of Blanche’s caretaker, albeit a somewhat negligent one.
As has been made abundantly clear, Jane has had an alcohol dependency ever since Blanche’s career in film began. This reliance on such a numbing agent only adds to Jane’s laxity when it comes to displaying just how psychotic she is. During one of her many moments of free time, she begins singing one of the numbers from her old act, in which she recites the lyric, “I know I’m too young to know any better…”, pausing to examine herself in the mirror and be flogged with the realization that this simply isn’t the case anymore. Struck with how aged her appearance is, she breaks down sobbing, only to be interrupted by Blanche buzzing for her to come up to her room.
As Blanche quickly discovers, Jane’s mental state is even more deteriorated than she anticipated, evidenced by Jane killing Blanche’s bird and serving it to her as a part of her lunch. The only person Blanche can turn to for solace is her nurse, Elvira (Maidie Norman), whose visits to the house are too sparse to keep Jane from getting away with her cruel mind games. It also gives Jane license to forge Blanche’s signatures and withdraw money from her bank account so that she can seize the opportunity to place an advertisement in the paper soliciting piano players to audition at her house so that she can revive her original “Baby Jane” act.
In spite of Jane having nearly all of her bases covered when it comes to keeping Blanche sequestered from anyone who might be able to help rescue her from Jane’s torture, the desperation to kill off Blanche (via the starvation method) results in the death of Elvira, who sneaks into the house to see Blanche after witnessing some of Jane’s suspicious behavior, including firing her altogether. When Jane returns from one of her many errands involving her quest to become a star again, she discovers Elvira’s presence in the house and sneaks up on her to hit her over the head with a hammer. Being that, at this point, Blanche’s hands have been bound and a gag has been put in her mouth, she cannot forewarn Elvira of this event.
Jane, increasingly reveling in her derangement, is suddenly deterred by the police’s search to find Elvira. Now comprehending the gravity of what she has done, Jane looks to Blanche for guidance. Blanche, by this time, is fading fast from the emotional trauma and food deprivation, and thus isn’t too interested in offering up escape plans. This drives Jane to the conclusion that they should retreat to the sea. Her attempt at hiding is useless, though, as a front page story about the search for Jane and her implication in the murder is printed early that morning. Still, it gives Jane and Blanche one last chance to bury the hatchet–or at least Blanche, who is more mentally coherent, notwithstanding her inevitable death.
Once they arrive at the beach, Blanche finally musters the strength to tell Jane a final confession: That Blanche was the one who crippled herself, not Jane. On the eve of the accident, Blanche recalls, Jane was completely inebriated (as usual) and went to open the gate to Blanche’s house while Blanche sat in the driver’s seat of the car waiting. It was then that she was overcome with the inclination to run Jane over. The plan backfired when Jane moved out of the way and Blanche’s car collided into the gate, snapping her spine. It is through this divulgence that we see Blanche is truly the more malevolent of the two sisters, the one who took their rivalry to an uncharted height.
As maligned and vilified as Jane is in this movie, there is something about her–the vehement desire for public adoration and the tragic fact that she will never again have it–that makes the viewer have intermittent compassion for her. And, in a way, Jane is able to outshine her sister one last time in the end as everyone on the beach flocks over to see the spectacle of the police arresting Jane and her eerie regression to her childhood by prancing around with two ice cream cones in hand, one for her and one for the now deceased Blanche.
