Cloche
Following the double bill of vampire films with The Hunger and Ganja & Hess, Trace and I jumped into genre hodge podge last week with Fred Dekker’s delightful sci-fi homage, Night of the Creeps.
This week we’re veering gently into camp territory with the birth of hagsploitation in Robert Aldrich‘s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? The film follows Blanche and Jane as sisters and former vaudeville stars, played by real-life rivals Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. The sisters live together and Jane takes care of (read: abuses) her older sister Blanche after she lost her ability to walk following a car accident.
As Blanche plots to escape her sister’s torment, Jane hires pianist Edwin Flagg (gay actor Victor Buono) to assist with her delusional plans to mount a comeback. As Jane spirals, she directs her madness toward her sister in increasingly malicious and dangerous ways. Will Blanche find help or save herself before it’s too late?
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Episode 229 – What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)
Chop up those rats and tomatoes and practice your vaudeville act because we’re joined by guest Tyrone Williams to discuss Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962).
Obviously the “feud” looms large over this film, so Trace has done a mega deep dive into the careers of both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, this production and what followed.
Plus: overusing the word “cloche”, Oscar talk, a neat vs on the rocks hard liquor tangent, accusations of familiarity, a queer reading of Edwin, and debate about whether Blanche lives or dies.
Cross out What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re jumping back 20 years to commemorate the Cannes debut of gay director Gus Van Sant’s Columbine movie, Elephant (2003).
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 241 hours of additional content! This month we’re going all in on Evil Dead with an episode on Evil Dead Rise, our thoughts on the whole Evil Dead franchise, and an audio commentary on the original 1981 film. Plus: we’ll have episodes on Amazon Prime’s queer as fuck Dead Ringers series, and the Lulu Wilson-starring The Wrath of Becky.
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