Horror Costuming: "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"@60

by Cláudio Alves

I had such grand plans for October. There was going to be plenty of spooky season with horror-themed write-ups and the return of my miniseries on scary movie costumes. But then COVID hit, and then the flu -- it's been a perpetual state of foggy-brained sickness. Still, it wouldn't do to let October end without one Horror Costuming post. even if I have to write the damned thing in between coughing fits. Since I already wrote about one one genre pic that won the Costume Oscar (the Eiko Ishioka-dressed Dracula) let's look at another. On its 60th anniversary, let's discuss the essential What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, the genesis of the Grand Dame Guignol craze...

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Almost There: Joan Crawford in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

by Cláudio Alves

It's October, a season for spookiness and horror movies, for nightmares and ghouls. It seems only appropriate that the Almost There series takes a look at a performance in the horror genre, though it's hard to find examples that fit the criteria. AMPAS is famously allergic to most horror and few actors have been recognized or come close for that genre. 

Inspired by the month and the Criterion Channel's new Joan Crawford collection, I decided to take a look at one of the actress' most contentious and controversial achievements. One speaks of that terrifying occasion when Joan and Bette met onscreen, the clashing of two titans and two acting styles, the epitome of Grande Dame Guignol. That's right, it's time to explore What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...

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every guy here'd love to link you, Gaston

Today's Must Read
BuzzFeed good piece by Allison Willmore on the maddening response to absolutely nothing moments proclaimed to be LGBT "firsts!" in movies. Two parts of the problems she doesn't mention though are 1) the internet demands for constant content incentivize journalists to blow everything out of proportion including super stupid things like "LeFou is gay!" and 2) too many pop culture journalists are operating from a place of zero knowledge about pop culture before they were, like, 12. 

more links after the jump including insightful pieces on Feud and an investigation of Logan's family jewels...

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Noirvember: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

It's Noirvember. Here's Bill Curran on a Robert Aldrich's neo-noir

The world turned upside down, inside out. Film noir depends on following innate impulses to that most ultimate, unthinkable, irrational end: death. Noir explores that nasty thing called "human nature, revealing (and revelling in) the elemental urges that really make us tick. Noir unmasks the mechanics of this crazy world with some variation on a guy, a girl, and a gun. Upending sexual-patriarchal dynamics, leveling the tenants of justice and who is responsible for carrying it out, filming what we do in the shadows in the half-light: when you flip the script on taste and convention, you can learn a lot about how topsy-turvy this whole mess called Earth can be. 

Kiss Me Deadly stews in and subverts these genre contradictions more brazenly than almost any other film noir before or since, perhaps because it is, in the end, about the dawn of the end of the world. Gonzo and sophisticated in equal measure, from the backward title scrawl to the A-bomb finale, this loose 1955 adaptation of the Mickey Spillane novel could be called the first neo-noir and what the Cahier du cinema crowd dubbed, "the thriller of tomorrow.”

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The Mother of all Feuds

a must readAs you've surely heard by now, since it's one of the most striking actressy announcements in some time, Ryan Murphy's next anthology series will be called "Feud" and for its first season the subject is the über showbiz catfight: Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford. Bette & Joan's famous loathing for each other was not confined to just the horror classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) but the series will be confined there since that set is the natural place to dramatize. It was the only film the two combative actresses made together. After the success of Baby Jane, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) was intended as a reunion but ultimately Olivia de Havilland (who had her own legendary feud with sister Joan Fontaine) took Crawford's place.

Since Ryan Murphy can't live without Jessica Lange he's cast her as Joan Crawford. It's a terrible call because their screen personas are antithetical...

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