1964 Davis & de Havilland Horror Released on 2008 DVD
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Released for the Leading Lady's 100th birthday, the "Bette Davis Centenary Collection," includes a 7 Oscar nominated, 44yo horror classic, "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte," for the 1st time on DVD!
The all-star cast includes 1964 Best Supporting Actress, Agnes Moorehead delivering an engrossing performance as Velma, Charlotte Hollis' (Bette Davis) loyal but scruffy maid. Olivia de Havilland is Miriam, Charlotte's worldly, refined & beautiful cousin. Joseph Cotten is Dr. Drew. Significantly, this is Mary Astor's last film performance.
Charlotte's (Davis) a woman who's bedraggled by years of haunted flashbacks to events on the night she found her young fiancé, John, brutally murdered. Accused by townspeople so long, she believes them. Her sole companion & friend is a scrappy-looking maid, Velma (Moorehead). Because of her reclusiveness, clinging to the past & neighbors shunning her, Charlotte seems psychotically paranoid.
when she's told that the state is going to bulldoze the family mansion she owns in order to create a highway on her property, Charlotte's sure the community's out to destroy her. Armed with a shot gun, she goes berserk chasing everyone off of her property.
Without a family, she summons her cousin Miriam (de Havilland) to the rescue. From the moment Miriam walks into the musty old mansion, Velma distrusts her & shows it. Moorehead's embodiment of distrust & disgust combined with undying loyalty to "Miss Charlotte," is so on point it's an Oscar-winning performance. Though Charlotte childishly depends on Miriam, Velma is keenly aware that Miriam is pretending to be supportive. Instead, Miriam calls in Dr. Drew, the family physician (Joseph Cotten), to prove Charlotte's insane. As Miriam & Drew plot to have Charlotte institutionalized, Velma finds out & vanishes.
Haunting nightmares of John's murder escalate into apparent horrifying hallucinations of his mutilated ghost. The horror film goes into full blown graphic detail. If Davis' portrayal of "Baby Jane" prior to "Hush, Hush..." was a depiction of an adult living in an insane child's mind, then her performance as tormented Charlotte, who never matured beyond the moment of John's horrific murder, takes insanity to an altogether more intensely horrifying realm.
The real life relationships between 2 very different key supporting actresses (Crawford in "Baby Jane..." & de Havilland in "Hush, Hush..."), are the primary cause that "Baby Jane" plays out like a splendid insider's farce. Knowing that Crawford is spitefully jealous of Davis' acting career & that Davis detests Crawford for being a social climber upon men's beds (opps, I mean backs), we laugh with Davis who's having the time of her life torturing the ever-suffering role Crawford succumbs to repeatedly playing. "Baby Jane's..." more of a "black comedy." Davis fans delight while she pulls out all the stops to terrorize Crawford--fangs exposed; Crawford fans swoon to the masochistic all-suffering helpless victim.
Davis & de Havilland are real life chums taking on "Hush, Hush...." Viewers recall roles de Havilland plays of sincerely kind & benevolent friends, like Millie in "Gone with the Wind," & Lady Miriam in "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Audiences are stunned to witness Davis in a role of the terrorized hermit held up in a haunted house of horrors, while de Havilland stuns us incarnating evil. The point is, Davis wouldn't depict a woman as a masochistic helpless victim. Not even Charlotte~
Review ID: 10000000008035533
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