By Steve Biodrowski

Critical consensus to the contrary, this unofficial follow-up to WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? is in some ways better than its prognitor; it is also more of an all-out horror film: filled with dark, stormy nights; brutal murders; shocking dismemberments; and unexplained things that go bump in the night. The script by Henry Farrell and Lukas Heller wraps all of these suspense elements up into a sad, even tragic, story that elevates HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE several levels above the usual mechanical shockfest, and producer-director Robert Aldrich (more noted for his macho action films, like THE DIRTY DOZEN) serves it all up with terryfing conviction, using clever camera angles, zooms, quick cutting, and long takes of dark corridors to create a wonderful, if somewhat leisurely paced piece of Southern Gothic horror.

The story begins in 1927, when Sam Hollis (Victor Buono) buys off John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) the married Lotharia who had been planning to elope with Sam's daughter, Charlotte. John ends up with his head and hand hacked off by a meat cleaver; everyone assumes Charlotte did it in a rage after being jilted, but there is some reason to suspect Sam may have been the perpetrator, fearing that John was going to renege on his deal.

Decades later, Charlotte (Bette Davis), once a beautiful Southern belle, has become the local equivalent of a witch -- the crazy old woman believed to have chopped her lover to death. She lives in the Hollis mansion, alone except for her fatihful servant Velma (Anges Moorehead). The plot kicks in when her property is seized (apparently under eminent domain) to make way for a new highway. Refusing to budge, she seeks help from our cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland). At the same time, an insurance investigator posing as a reporter (Cecil Kellaway) is making inquiries about why Mrs. Jewl Mayhew (Mary Astor) never collected on her husband's life insurance policy.

Strange things begin to happen in the Hollis mansion. Someone slashes Miriam's dress. In the middle of the night, Charlotte hears someone playing the love song John wrote for her before his death. She sees glimpses of John's severed hand and head (the later rolling down the stairs), neither of which was ever found at the time of the murder. Is she haunted by ghosts, or is she going mad? In her disturbed state of mind, she shoots the family doctor (Joseph Cotten), then hides the body with the help of Miriam -- only to find that it won't say dead...

Reduced to its essence, the story of HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE is basic stuff: incredible, frightening, possibly supernatural events bedevil a lonely, unstable woman who owns a valuable estate, and the audience must figure out whether the phenomena are real oir fake, possibly part of some plan to drive Charlotte insane and seize her assets. What makes the film so much more than just a mechanical thriller has a lot to do with production values: the sets, Souther locations, and black-and-white photography (by Joseph Biroc) are wonderfully atmospheric, making this a genuinely creepy film, filled with a sense of inevitable decay and tragedy regarding Charlotte's wasted life. But the film's stature owes even more to the characterizations and performances.

In the lead, Bette Davis gives a true tour-de-force. Once a great leading lady, the aging actress had lost her youthful beauty but not her talent when she made HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE -- which like, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?, evoked horror in an almost exploitative way by casting the formerly glamorous star as grotesque mockery of her earlier self. Davis had wanted to play Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND, and in a sense she gets her chance here, but the sick joke of the movie is that it's nearly thirty years too late, and her character looks truly pathetic wandering corridors in a white dress, as if she were still a young girl expecting her lover to elope with her one day.

This "hag horror" -- casting an elderly actress as a screeching, demented banshee who seems to have one foot in the loony asylum and the other in the grave -- dominates audience attention on first viewing. But subsequent screenings reveal a much more layered, nuanced approach. Davis is clearly capable of all the eye-rolling, face-twisting hysterics required by the role, but she also knows how to carefully modulate the performance with quieter interludes of wistfullness and and occasional lucidity. Although Charlotte is initially presented as potentially homicidal gargoyle, Davis earns our pity and ultimately our sympathy. When she finally turns the tables on her tormentors, the audience wants to cheer.

De Havilland and Cotten are also fine in less showy roles. De Havilland may not be quite as overpowering as Joan Crawford would have been (Crawford dropped out of the role after filming for a few weeks), but she had held onto her glamorous good looks better than Davis (she is stunning in an evening dress late in the film), which creates a nice visual contrast; also, her goody-two-shoes image works perfectly, helping to divert suspicion of her and make the script's later twists seem genuinely surprising.

Only Agnes Moorehead comes across poorly, as the maid Velma (a role that is the obvious equivalent of Elvira the housekeeper in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?) Her slightly over-the-top, almost campy performance suggests a white actress's stereotypical impersonation of a black servant (as they were portrayed in films at that time): shuffling, uncouth, uneducated, but sincerly devoted to her mistress.

At over 130 minutes, the film is not the quickest thriller, but the easy-going pace seems part and parcel of the Southern atmosphere. It also gives the film a sense of strong story value, as all the points of exposition are made clearly (and sometimes repeatedly), and we get a chance to see the characters in a variety of different situations that are not directly related to the horror. Aldrich compensates for the narrative largesse by includiing several scary teasers -- scenes of people walking through dark rooms where you think something horrible will happen but nothing does. This is fairly effective during the first viewing; watching the film again, the shock value is gone, but the effect still plays like a directorial tour de force, Aldrich employs all the Gothic machinery for the sake of goosing up the film even when nothing is really happening.

In the end, his approach works. HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE is not ashamed of being a thriller, but it is in no hurry to string together a relentless series of scare scenes with just a weak thread of plot. The extended length may drag at times, but it also helps the story build -- not just as a thriller but also as a drama. By the time of the final fadeout, when all the screams are over, you may find yourself shedding a tear as well. Poor, sweet Charlotte...she suffers so much, and even when the plot revelations have exonerated her, it seems too late. We breath a sigh of relief when she lets go of her past (leaving behind not only her house but also the music box that plays the love song John wrote for her), but what future does she have to look forward to? Not much, but we have to take solace in the thought that the truth has given her some very much needed peace of mind.

TRIVIA

MINOR SPOILER: Although not a sequel, HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE is obviously a follow-up to WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

• Both films were produced and directed by Robert Aldrich.
• BABY JANE was scripted by Lukas Heller from a novel by Henry Farrell; SWEET CHARLOTTE was scripted by Farrell and Heller.
• The working title for SWEET CHARLOTTE was WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COUSIN CHARLOTTE? (Bette Davis objected that this would mislead audiences into thinking it was a sequel.)
• BABY JANE starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; SWEET CHARLOTTE starred Davis, and Olivia de Havilland replaced Crawford after a few weeks of shooting. 
• Both films begin with extended prologues, set decades ago, before moving to present day.
• Both films are about once beautiful women who have aged into frightening hags.
• In both films, an aging woman is tormented by a relative (in one a sister, in the other a cousin) who wants to get her hands on the family fortune.
• Both films feature a sympathetic maid or housekeeper who risks (and ultimately loses) her life trying to help her employer.
• BABY JANE references PSYCHO by naming a neighbor "Mrs. Bates"; SWEET CHARLOTTE references PSYCHO in the staging of the opening murder, which uses flash cuts of a swinging blade in a way similar to the famous shower scene.
• In both films, Davis plays a demented character who may have committed a terrible crime in the past.
• In both films, last minute revelations exonerate the Davis character of these ancient crimes, but not before recent circumstances have driven her to kill someone in the present.

After the prlogue set in 1927, and the scene of the boys challenging the new kid on the block to sneak into Charlotte's house, the opening credits finally appear on screen -- sixteen minutes into the film. The title theme song became a hit when recorded by Patti Page the year of the film's general release. The version of the song heard over the opening credits includes a ghoulish version of the lyrics: "Chop...Chop, Sweet Charlotte..."

The film's general release was in 1965, after being released briefly at the end of the previous year to qualify for the Acadmey Awards. It received several nominations, for cinematography, costumes, and the supporting performance of Agnes Moorehead.

MINOR SPOILER: One dangling plot thread involves the severed head and hand of Charlotte's lover, John Mayhew (Bruce Dern). The local Sheriff (Wesley Adderly) tells the insurance investigator that they were never found, and this is supposed to lead the audience into suspecting that Charlotte may have them hidden somewhere. (At one point, she even mockingly insists that she has them in her music box.) This sets up the shock scenes in which Charlotte sees (or thinks she sees) the head and hand, but this turns out to be a fake out. The real head and hand are never found, and their absence is never explained.

DVD DETAILS

The 2005 DVD release of HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE offers a beautiful widescreen transfer of the film that captures Joseph Biroc's black-and-white photography with crystal clarity. The bonus features include a couple trailers, a few TV spots, and an audio commentary.

The trailers and television commercials are in good shape; they look almost as good as the film itself -- which is exceptional, as most trailers seem to have been printed on inferior stock the degrades faster, or the DVD distributor doesn't think it's worth the expense of restoring them to their original lusture. The trailers are show widescreen; the TV spots are full screen. Much of the footage is the same, but arranged differently, and the TV spots are very brief. These previews give some good glimpses of the movie; in fact, they show too many key scenes (even back in the 1960s, Hollywood was already churning out previews that gave away far too much). It is interesting to see the extent to which SWEET CHARLOTTE was sold as a horror film, not as a vehicle for its all-star cast.

The audio commentary by Gelnn Erickson is informative but frankly dull. Although Mr. Erickson is obviously well informed about the behind-the-scenes detals of the film, he spends far too much time recounting biographical information (about the stars, the supporting cast, the director). This information may be interesting, but it belongs on the disc's liner notes or as text in a cast-and-crew profiles section, not in an audio commentary that we hear while seeing the film.

When Erickson does get around to discussing HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE, mostly he summarizes the action on-screen, which is not particularly enlightening. Eventually, he tells some stories about the making of the film, including the circumstances under which Joan Crawford left the production. Toward the end, Erickson seems to warm up to his subject, and he spends the last reel giving some good analysis of the action and the filmic style, questioning some of the bigger logical stretches in the script. He wonders how the villains could expect to get away with their deception, and how they managed to get Charlotte to react exactly as they needed her to, yet somehow he overlooks the question of John Mayhew's missing hand and head. Overall, his commentary is of most interest to fans who want to hear detals about the people involved with the film. Those looking for insightful analysis or in-depth making-of information will be disappointed.