What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? · reception & legacy

1962 · Robert Aldrich

How What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A gamble nobody in Hollywood wanted to fund — two 'washed-up' stars in a cheap Grand Guignol — it became a surprise 1962 smash and Oscar nominee, and has since climbed from lurid curiosity to certified camp-horror canon, the founding text of the whole 'psycho-biddy' genre.

What's debated

The eternal fan debate: is this high camp to cackle at or a genuinely devastating horror film about fame and aging — and does the legendary Davis–Crawford offscreen feud (reheated by TV's 'Feud: Bette and Joan') enrich the movie or swallow it whole?

Its footprint

'But ya AAH, Blanche! Ya AAH in that chair!' is one of the most quoted lines in camp history, and Baby Jane's ghoulish caked-on makeup and ringlets are a drag and Halloween staple; the Davis–Crawford rivalry it crystallized got its own FX miniseries in 2017.

Where it stands

A pillar of the gay/camp canon and the urtext of hagsploitation — the 'you must have seen this' entry point for late-career Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

★ Did you know? At the 1963 Oscars, Bette Davis was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Anne Bancroft — and Joan Crawford, unnominated, arranged to accept the award onstage on Bancroft's behalf, sweeping past Davis in what became one of the most famous acts of shade in Hollywood history.