Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?

Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) is an aging child star left to care for her wheelchair-bound sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), also a former child actress. Stuck living together in a mansion in old Hollywood, Blanche plots to get even with Jane for the car crash that left her crippled years earlier. But Jane is desperate to keep Blanche imprisoned as she plans a new rise to fame, and tries to hide Blanche’s existence from doctors, visitors and neighbours while she devises a way to get rid of her sister. The intensely bitter Hollywood rivalry between the film’s two stars, Davis and Crawford, was heavily important to the film’s initial success and which, in part, led to the revitalisation of the then-waning careers of the two stars. In the years after release, critics continue to acclaim the film for its psychologically driven black comedy and creation of the “psycho-biddy” subgenre.