YMMV / What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Tormenting your primary caretaker while you are wheelchair-bound will leave you in a very precarious situation if the caretaker decides enough is enough.
  • Sibling rivalries are painful to overcome, but it is how you prevent future conflict. If Blanche and Jane had tried to talk things out years ago, the tragedy of the movie wouldn't have occurred. Instead, they let they anger fester into a decades-long grudge match that ended with Elvira dead, Blanche (possibly) dying, and Jane likely headed for the madhouse.
  • Just because someone is "polite" does not make that person "good." Blanche's seemingly posh demeanor masks an incredibly vindictive woman who tried to kill her sister, lied about it, and tormented that same sister for years over something she didn't do. Jane, despite her many flaws, was ultimately the more mature sister, and anyone who could see through Blanche's airs and falsehoods could've figured out how toxic she was.
  • Show business is a brutal slog that brings painful psychological consequences. If Blanche and Jane had not been exposed to that life, they probably would've grown into much happier adults.
  • Obsessing about past fame will leave you miserable, and you should move on and do something different with your life. Jane would probably be happier if she moved on from "Baby Jane" and tried to achieve success as an adult actress or simply left acting entirely.
• Adaptation Displacement: Henry Farrell's original novel is all but forgotten today.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • It's unknown if Blanche plotted revenge straight from the "you bet I won't forget" moment up until she tried to run over her sister. One has to wonder what her attitude towards Jane was afterwards. Did she withhold the truth just to torture Jane even further (forcing her to act as her caretaker)? Did she keep the lie out of fear of what Jane might do for revenge if she found out? Or was she genuinely sorry and just didn't know how to come out with it? Note that the book leans more towards the former interpretation, revealing that Blanche deliberately kept Jane from seeking psychiatric help because she was afraid that, as part of the therapy, Jane might remember that she was the miraculously escaped victim of Blanche's hit-and-run attack, rather than the assailant who crippled Blanche like she believes herself to be.
  • Jane with regards to how much she cares for Blanche. In the opening, although Jane is bratty, she still wants Blanche to be included (insisting her father get some ice cream for her too). Blanche describes Jane fondly in her youth, implying the sisters were close once upon a time. The fact that Jane is still caring for her decades later implies that lingering affection could be squashed by her own bitterness and jealousy. When Elvira is killed and Edwin discovers the secret, Jane's first instinct is to run to Blanche like a frightened child. And when she discovers the truth, her first thought is not anger but sadness. The remake implies the latter, with the sisters being cordial and even affectionate at times - before Jane goes off the rails.
  • Another reason for Jane being Blanche's carer, despite her obvious mental health problems. Blanche may just want cheap labour, since Jane is her sister, and letting her believe she's responsible for her disability is a handy way to guilt her into looking after her for less pay rather than a professional who's better equipped. Indeed, Blanche at one point tries to threaten Jane that she depends on her for pocket money.
  • We don't see enough of Jane's performances in film to get a sense of whether she's a bad actress or not. Bette Davis actively chose the old films of hers she viewed as the weakest, but the ones chosen were from a time when the studio were trying to make her into a Greta Garbo-esque bombshell (to her displeasure). The exec watching it trash talks her performance, but Jane later says she was told she got compliments on other roles. As we see her perfectly imitating Blanche's voice and still remembering song lyrics and choreography she hasn't performed in decades, it's possible she does have some talent; but her obvious alcohol problems and diva behaviour are what count against her.
  • When Jane says to Blanche at the end, "You mean...all this time, we could have been friends?", was she saying that if only Blanche had told her all along, she'd have been able to forgive her? Or was the comment simply bitter sarcasm? Or was Jane so out of her mind by that point she didn't know what she was saying?
  • Jane's strangely blissful attitude and dance routine at the end. Has Jane lost all touch with reality or does she feel some strange form of euphoria, knowing she didn't run her sister down.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: While "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" was invented for this movie, it's a parody of a very real song called "I Want A Pardon for Daddy", itself only one of a small universe of popular vaudeville tearjerkers written from the perspective of young children with dead/imprisoned parents, with titles such as "Roses On Mother's Grave" (the roses dear Mother tended with such care now decorate her grave), "The Empty Chair" (a list of all the chairs in which dear Father will never sit again), and "Mother Never Laughs Anymore" (the lyrics are unclear if Mother is grieving Father or if she stopped laughing because she herself is dead). Point being, "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" may be a parody, but it's barely an exaggeration.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The film was expected to flop, particularly after the stories leaked to the press about the quarreling between the stars, but the film turned out to be a critical and commercial hit, even earning an Academy Award nomination for Bette Davis.
• Common Knowledge: Due to how often it's parodied by drag queens, the reputation of the 'Hagsploitation' subgenre and even Feud portraying it being regarded as an unintentional comedy, many people assume it's of a quality similar to Valley of the Dolls or Mommie Dearest - rather than a Gothic Horror story that also functions as a character study of Gaslighting, life after stardom and the lingering effects of child abuse. Far from being about Catfights or Soap Opera tactics, the animosity between the sisters is a psychological game of cat-and-mouse, and both lead actresses took their roles very seriously (as did the filmmakers).
• Cult Classic: It was hugely controversial (it even received an X rating in the UK!) so of course it became a midnight movie - which it still is today.
• Dancing Bear: A large amount of the film's publicity stemmed from the heated rivalry between the two leads.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Jane no longer believes she's evil, and becomes as bright and happy as a child, but may be taken away to a mental institution, and there's no indication whether Blanche is alive or dead at the end. Regardless, Jane now knows the truth and is fine with it.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Mrs Bates says "that Jane Hudson makes me so mad I could kill her", and her daughter jokes "what'll we use?" - said daughter is played by the daughter of Bette Davis, BD Merrill. She would later publish a scathing Mommie Dearest-style book about her mother (My Mother's Keeper) while Davis was still alive and in failing health.
  • Jane Hudson is known as a drunken mess on set when she tries to be an actress, while Blanche is a perfect lady. The reverse happened to the two actresses that played them; Bette Davis was known for being a consummate professional who kept working for nearly twenty years after this film. Joan Crawford was known for being drunk and full of Narm, and would have retired from films before the decade was over. It's actually quite startling how her later years would end up paralleling Jane rather than her character Blanche; with the series Feud even highlighting it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Jane laments to Blanche that her movie, "The Longest Night," was the best thing she ever did - but was never even released in the United States. By sheer coincidence, not one but two films with similar titles would be released not only the same year, but the same MONTH as Baby Jane - those two being The Longest Day and Long Day's Journey Into Night (both were released mere weeks apart from Jane) - and all three films would compete the following year at the 1963 Oscars, with "Longest Day" actually beating out "Jane" for the Best Cinematography – Black-and-White Academy Award.
  • When Jane falsely claims to Elvira that Blanche knows about her taking the day off, Elvira is skeptical but reluctantly leaves the house without trying to see Blanche. As she heads out the door, she innocently says: "Well, alright if you say so. See you next Tuesday, then." The phrase "See you next Tuesday" has since evolved into a modern clandestine way for delivering a particularly vile insult, although it is unlikely that this was intended as such by Bob Aldrich or the screenwriter. This hasn't stopped modern-day viewers from making the connection, especially considering that Jane's behavior in the film proper up to that point would probably be seen as warranting being called "that word" anyway.
• LGBT Fanbase: Starring Joan Crawford and being about two aging divas fighting led to this film being remembered as a Camp classic. It's been popular in drag culture for decades.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Butcha are, Blanche! Ya are in that chair!"
  • "You mean...all this time, we could have been friends?"
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Jane appears to have crossed this with her attempted murder and systematic abuse of Blanche. The twist ending reveals all this to be a subversion.
  • Jane's murder of Elvira would seem to remove all doubt, though it is debatable whether or not she is guilty by reason of insanity.
  • Blanche crossed it many years ago when she tried to murder her own sister, then let her sister believe she was responsible and forced her to take care of her for the rest of her life.
• Narm: Lynn Redgrave's makeup in the remake. It's essentially the same as Bette Davis's— but the difference is that the remake is in colour. Davis's worked in black and white, and helped make Jane look creepy. Redgrave's, on the other hand, looks incredibly goofy. That's not to mention the Girlish Pigtails.
• Nightmare Fuel: Bette Davis goes out of her way to play up Jane slowly going insane, with her caked-on horrid makeup that makes it look like her eyes are bulging out of her head and constantly contorting her face into leering grin after leering grin, so that pretty much every scene with Jane puts you on edge. Of special note should be the scene where Blanche, terrified, is desperately calling for doctor Shelby on the phone while the door opens behind her, revealing Jane...and she just stands there...
• Once Original, Now Overdone: This movie was particularly scandalous for depicting its two aging actresses so unglamorously and horrifically that it received an X-rating! While regarded as extremely well made, newer viewers are unlikely to cop just how shocking it was at the time.
• One-Scene Wonder: The girls' father only appears in the prologue, but is such a Small Role, Big Impact, and a quintessential Stage Dad that he's remembered.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: While held in high regard, the behind the scenes drama between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and their overall feud is better remembered - and the film itself is often just remembered as a mere catalyst for it. A series about the feud was later made, with the majority of the action centering around this movie.
• Parody Displacement: Jane's "But ya are, Blanche! Ya ARE in that chair!" line has made its way into numerous TV shows over the years, including Seinfeld, The Nanny, and Designing Women. However, in most of these instances, the line is said in an evil, mockingly sadistic tone. This is very different from Bette's own line delivery - which actually is more bellowed frustratedly in response to Blanche's attempts at further gaslighting her. It is reasonable to assume this is not the first time Blanche has given her this speech, nor that this is the first time she's said some variation of "you wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I weren't still in this chair!" before. Bette's performance clearly indicates that she is about to give in again, still feeling immense guilt over what she believes is her role in crippling her own sister. She then snaps out of it, turns to Blanche contemptuously and makes it clear - "not this time" - that she is NOT winning this one.
• Ron the Death Eater: Pop culture remembers Jane as a deranged villain, and ignoring all the nuances to her character, since of course this would require them to know the film's twist: that Jane never tried to kill her sister, and it was actually Blanche, who has been Gaslighting her for roughly thirty years. The Tragic Monster aspects to her character are forgotten, and she's remembered as a one-dimensional crazy old woman.
• Special Effect Failure: Whenever Jane imitates Blanche's voice, it's obviously Joan Crawford dubbing Bette Davis.
• Technology Marches On:
  • One could argue Technology Marching On applies twice: in-universe for both films, as Blanche's career receives a modest comeback when new technology makes her filmography available to a new generation of fans; and in a meta-sense for the remake, in which her comeback is attributed to the then-current boom in home video. In 1961, airing old movies on television was new and novel; by 1991, it was practically what television was for.
  • When the situation gets truly desperate, Blanche forces herself down the stairs and calls a local doctor to ask him to come to the house, but before he can leave his office, Jane calls him back and convinces him that it's not necessary because she's chosen another doctor. Just seven years after the movie was made, AT&T would introduce 911, the hotline to emergency services. Not only would they have a faster response time (of actual police, to boot, and not just a doctor), they would not have fallen for Jane's attempt to wave them off, and the movie would've ended about a half hour earlier. Even later, the advent of cell phones would have rendered much of the conflict of the movie moot (assuming, of course, that Jane would let Blanche have a cell phone in the first place).
  • The central twist of the film simply wouldn't be possible post-2010, where Blanche tries to run down her sister, breaks her spine in the process, and lies that Jane was driving the car, all of which was in their own driveway. By around the end of the 2010s, many houses middle class and above began installing cameras to monitor their driveways, meaning the lie would have been exposed very quickly.
• Values Dissonance:
  • When Edwin's mother is telling him about the night Jane supposedly tried to kill Blanche, she describes the worst part—read: worse than trying to murder her own sister—as being found in a hotel room with a man she didn't know. Sort-of lampshaded by Edwin in his retort:
    "Why do you care? Isn't that how I was conceived?"
  • At the beginning of the film, they sell dolls based on Baby Jane and stress that they are "exact replicas." A doll modeled on a real life little girl would have been innocent enough at the time — dolls and toys based on child and adult actresses were completely normal and Effanbee made "Look-A-Like" portrait dolls based on real children^note look up Loraine Burdick's Child Star Dolls and Toys, and Adult Star Dolls and Toys collectors' guides with many pictures — but takes on far more sinister and creepy overtones today. (This is a big YMMV, as many children still love dolls that look like celebrity children — or like themselves. Today, American Girl makes "Truly Me" dolls. My Twinn was developed by an emergency room doctor to help young patients regain confidence. Portrait dolls are a cottage industry on Etsy.)
  • Blanche seems to view sending Jane to a facility or getting medical help for her obvious mental problems as A Fate Worse Than Death (where exactly was she expecting Jane to go once she sold the house?) - and doesn't even call a doctor until Elvira pushes for it. Mental healthcare had come a long way by the mid-60s with new advances in medication, but most people would still imagine a facility as a Bedlam House. However, given that Blanche is expecting an obvious alcoholic to be her carer, it's an early indicator that she's a villain.
• Values Resonance: Elvira is by far the most competent, heroic and intelligent person in the movie, whose only big mistake is turning her back on Jane after leaving the hammer within her reach, and her dialogue is comparatively more modern than the stereotypical black maid of the period (Maidie Norman reportedly refused to say some of the lines as written, telling Bob Aldrich that 'this is not the way we talk these days. This is old slavery-time talk'). This is especially impressive given that the film was released as the Civil Rights movement was in full swing and came out a full six years before Night of the Living Dead, the film widely credited as being the first horror film to feature a black protagonist.
• The Woobie:
  • Jane. Poor, poor Jane. Wracked by guilt over something she never did.
  • Jane as a child qualifies too. It's strongly implied that their father pushed her into show business and allowed her to become the arrogant brat she was. He never disciplined her and made Blanche think she was The Un-Favourite.
  • Blanche, over the course of the movie, culminating in her supposed death at the end.
  • There's more than an element of Jerkass Woobie in both cases, however. Blanche because she tried to kill Jane and then framed Jane for trying to kill her, and Jane because whether she was guilty or not, she still spent a significant amount of time psychologically tormenting and abusing her disabled sister.

---