WHAT WENT WRONG - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

The feud of feuds! This week Lizzie walks Chris through a rivalry between two stars, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, which may have begun as a publicity stunt but became a bizarre and malignant reality in the behind-the-scenes story of 1962's, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things have been going pretty well in quarantine with my parents. No overtly awkward conversations. Everyone's following COVID protocol, but they did just get a new puppy. And one of the first things he did was found my briefcase in the corner of a large room and pooped on it, dead center. And then we didn't notice for a good while. So I think that briefcase is always going to smell like top poop forever. Are you 95 years old? Why did you have a briefcase? I am 110. years old. I bring legal pads to all my meetings and I jot down notes that I can't read later. Cool guy. Because I've lost my bifocals. Cool guy. Well, guys, welcome back to another episode of what went wrong. This week, I am so excited about the movie that we're talking about. Lizzie, I just want you to dive in and get going because I watched this movie with my parents and Carmela last night. My parents were like, my parents were like, well, watch the first half. Everybody sat through the whole thing.

And it's not short. No, it's not short. Two hours and 15 minutes. And of course, we're talking about whatever happened to baby Jane. Yeah. I am so excited that we are doing this one for our surprise season one finale. That's right, people. We are going to take a three-week-long break.

And during that time, we will be getting even more delicious episodes ready for you. But back to the conversation at hand, which is, of course, the 1962 film. whatever happened to baby Jane. This is one of my favorite movies ever. I grew up watching a lot of old movies. I will say I grew up watching a lot of Betty Davis, like of her actual performances. And she is amazing. All About Eve is one of my favorite movies ever.

We just watched that recently. It is still incredible. I have a bit of a different relationship with Joan Crawford, which is that I mostly know about her from Mommy Dearest. Right, the wild book written by her daughter. And the even wilder movie. Yes, exactly. Which I'm sure we will probably talk about at some point here.

Yeah, I mostly know that they both had four husbands. They did. That's really all I know about. Yeah, Betty Davis and Joan Crawford are the stars of whatever happened to baby Jane for anyone that doesn't know. There are a lot of similarities between the two of them, not the least of which is that they both had four husbands. Also, speaking of Mommy Dearest, we'll get this out of the way now.

A little known fact, Betty Davis's daughter also wrote a tell-all book about what a bitch she was. But nobody seemed to care about that one. Wow. The generational competition continues. So whatever happened to Baby Jane is a, we'll say it's a horror movie, although it is kind of the genesis of a genre that would continue for a little bit known as the Psycho Biddy genre. My favorite term for any genre. And by the way, because I did look this up recently, to anyone who thinks Biddy is a recent term, hundreds of years old, very old phrase.

It was released October 31st, fittingly, 1962, directed by Robert Aldrich. It's Aldrich, right? Not Aldrich? We're going to say it's Robert Aldrich, and I hope that's right. Apologies if it's not. So it is a screenplay by Lucas Heller based on the 1960 book of the same name by Henry Farrell. It, of course, stars Betty Davis as Bates. Jane Hudson and Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson and Victor Bwono as Edwin and he is excellent. So good.

So funny. What a weird character. He's amazing. Now, it was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Actress for Betty Davis and Best Supporting Actor for our favorite Victor Bwono. Oh, great. It did win one for Best Costume Design. Now, the movie follows Aging Sisters Jane and Blan.

Hudson in their mansion in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, which you can go drive by. Jane is a former vaudeville child star who has completely failed as a movie actress, all while her sister Blanche, played by Joan Crawford, rose to major Hollywood stard. Both careers were ended when a horrible accident left Blanche paralyzed from the waist down. Now it's implied that a drunk Jane accidentally, or on purpose, hit her with their car. Later in life, Blanche tries to sell their house and get Jane some mental health help. Jane turns violent and basically reverts back to her childhood persona eventually in an attempt to hold on to her fleeting childhood success. It's amazing.

By the way, according to IMDB's trivia page for this movie, which is full of gems, there is one piece of trivia in there where reportedly Betty Davis was complaining about the size of the fake boobs that Joan Crawford insisted on wearing. And she said that when she was supposed to like fall on her at the end, that it felt like she was falling on two footballs and that she was out of breath. I love Betty Davis. One more fun fact, you know, the sort of annoying neighbor daughter who's like maybe kind of a bad actress, that is Betty Davis's daughter in real life. Oh, great. Yeah, she's so bad. She's also the one that writes the tell-all thing about Betty Davis. And to be fair, her tell-all is much more disputed than the one that Joan Crawford's kid wrote about her, which is pretty much held up by most people. Got it. Now, something to note right at the top is I had always thought of this movie as a cult classic. Something sort of in the vein of like Night of the Hunter that didn't find its feet until later in life.

However, that is completely inaccurate, which I did not know. Whatever happened to Baby Jane was a success pretty much right out the gate, both commercially and critically. It grossed over $9 million at the box office on a very small budget, which we will get to. Yeah. It's basically like one location. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a studio set. So what went wrong on this movie that was seemingly perfect? For anybody that knows anything about this movie, I think you're going to know some of what's coming,

which is that what went wrong came down to the relationship between the two massive movie stars at the center of the film, Joan Crawford and Betty Davis. They had a, let's say, fraught relationship. but the question of when that relationship became fraught and what actually happened is a bit up in the air and we will get into that. So a little bit of background on Betty and Joan for anybody that is not super familiar. Sorry, I've been drinking these spin drifts and it is. Lizzie looks like she's about to just throw up with burps right now.

Okay. Both actresses rose to fame in 1930s Hollywood, although. Joan got there first. She also, I'd like to point out, Joan's birth date has a little like question mark next to it. I noticed that because I looked up how I tried to look up how old she was and it was just like 19 something. Yeah. So I suspect she may have been at least a couple of years older than we think. She got to Hollywood first. She had a rough go of it in her childhood. We're not really going to get into it, but definitely, you know, was, she was, let's say like, like hard boiled, if you will, but very beautiful. I mean, when you see pictures of her when she's young, she's like stunning.

Shockingly statuesque. She looks like she was carved out of marble. Yeah, she's gorgeous. She was one of the very few actors who successfully transitioned from silent films to talkies, which I did not know that she was, she started gaining success in silent films. Now, she did come pretty late in the game. Like, she wasn't, you know, a super early silent movie star. But she just made the jump. And I think a lot of that probably has to do with the fact that she has a beautiful voice. She does.

A very, like, deep, almost tenor for female voice. Yes. Now, Betty, on the other hand, and Betty already was, I think, two years younger than Joan Crawford. So let's say a minimum of four. Which is shocking because Betty looks 15 years. older than her in the movie. That's on purpose. I know. I'm just saying. I was still surprised when I left it up. Also, both of them went hard on the booze and they still looked pretty good when they were older. So, you know, black and white covers

up a lot of splotiness. I guess. Betty got her start on Broadway, which she would return to later. And she definitely always considered herself a serious actress. Like she came from a very heavy theater background. She had a lot of training. These are a lot of things Joan Crawford did not have. And this is something that Betty Davis would frequently kind of lord over her. That, you know, she was the actress. Joan Crawford was the sort of glamour girl. And I will say, like, maybe it's just by function of the character, but Betty Davis's performance.

No, she's significantly better. Is out of this world. Like, and Joan Crawford's good. She's fine. But Betty Davis is remarkable. Yeah, Joan Crawford is good. I don't know if you've ever seen Mildred Pierce, the one movie that she did win an Oscar for. I don't know that I believe her as a loving mother who would do anything for what is her

daughter's name? Isn't it like Vera or something? I can't. Yeah, because they remade that. Yes. Now, as we were saying, Betty was an insanely talented actress. She garnered 10 official Academy Award nominations throughout her career. There is an 11th that was listed as a write-in very early on. I'm not entirely sure what that meant, but we'll say 11 Academy Award nominations. She won two Oscars, which is, of course, one more than Joan Crawford, who only won for Mildred Pierce. Both had very successful careers as leading ladies, but both were over 50 years old when 1960 rolled around. And both had pretty much completely run out of roles in Hollywood, which, as we know, has a bad habit of putting women out to pasture once they've hit 40.

It is an accomplishment, but particularly for Betty, who did fare a little better than Joan in her 40s because she did have All About Eve. She had the Virgin Queen. She also had the star, which we'll get to. And also, like, in the Virgin Queen, she was willing to make her, like, didn't she have to shave part of the head for that role? Yes, she did. Her willingness to take on strange physical characteristics seems to have maybe kept her in the game a little bit. I think so.

And I think it comes back to the fact that she did not consider herself a glamour girl, even though when she showed up early, she was playing these kind of like, you know, sort of like little chippy roles. If you watch whatever happened to baby Jane, they show early footage of both Betty Davis and Joan Crawford that is from their real movies when they were very young. And it's interesting because like it works really well because I think Betty Davis was not as good when she was young. And she wasn't as good in the kind of parts that they were giving her. So it is a little flat on screen. Joan Crawford on the other hand was this just absolutely stunning with this, you know, beautiful, rich voice. and you can kind of see like, okay, yeah, that one's the movie star. Now, for reference, Joan's last huge hit prior to Baby Jane was Mildred Pierce, which we've talked

about in 1945. That is, again, the one that she won her only Oscar for, which naturally she accepted from her bed as depicted in Mommy Dearest as well in an excellent scene. Oh, my God. If you have not seen Mommy Dearest, I almost want to say watch it before you watch whatever happened to Baby Jane. It is amazing. Faye Dunaway delivers a really career ending performance in many ways. Oh, also before we get a little bit farther into this, I do want to say that if you are interested in Joan Crawford, there is a whole series of episodes on her in one of my favorite

podcasts. You must remember this. Karina Longworth is the host of that. She's amazing. I'm a huge fan of her work and go listen to it. It's really great if you want to get a better sense of Joan Crawford. there is an episode on baby Jane as well. It definitely focuses more heavily on Joan than we're going to. So both of these women are contemporaries. They're both successful and they're beautiful. And that means that they must hate each other, right? Yes.

So let's talk about the feud, which is, of course, the name of the Ryan Murphy show also based on this feud. Where it begins is a little muddy. The first instance of some tension in the press happens when Joan divorces. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Now, she chooses to drop the news of her divorce to the trades on the same day that Davis's film, X-Lady, is set to hit theaters. This was a huge deal for Betty Davis. It was the first time she was supposed to get her name above the title. However, it ends up getting kicked to the back to a tiny paragraph. And, of course, the whole front page goes to Joan Crawford.

Due to lack of interest and ticket sales, ex-lady gets pulled from theaters like a week or two later. Yeah, so she's pissed. Now, again, There's a man in the mix, and that man is Franchotone. Franchotone, I have no idea. Anyway, he is an actor. I'm going to go with Franchotone. I want that guy to be the one that gets things spark. So he starred alongside Betty Davis in a movie called Dangerous.

And Betty was, like, crazy for him, very interested in him. However, she said that he would show up to set covered in lipstick kisses and stuff, because guess who he was interested in? Notorious lipstick wear. Lipstick wearer Joan Crawford. Eventually, Joan marries Franchot, after he had wrapped production on the movie that Betty and he starred in, that marriage fizzled out, as did all of Joan Crawford's. But the seeds of jealousy between the two extremely talented women were sewn, at least

according to the press. I do want to say, with a big grain of salt on all of this, I don't know how much of this is accurate or how much of it was being drummed up by the media. I think a lot, to be honest. Now, about this situation, Crawford once said of Davis that tone had thought of her as a good actress, but he'd never thought of her as a woman. Such a bitchy thing to say. Now, comments flew back and forth over the years as both actresses rose to the peak of their careers.

Davis once claimed publicly that Crawford had slept with every male star at MGM except for Lassie. And that one. Oh, wow. That one she for sure said. So they were at different studios in their studio system days. Davis was at Warner Brothers and Crawford was at MGM until 1943 when Crawford left MGM for Warner Brothers, which put them directly in competition with each other for the same parts.

And Lassie took a sigh of relief. That being said, as we've discussed, they're pretty different. So again, I wonder how much. many of the same parts they really were up for. Yeah, it seems like they would not have too much overlap. You know, like I saw somewhere there were some reports that Betty Davis had turned down Mildred Pierce and that Joan Crawford took it. And it's like, well, if Betty Davis turned it down, it's because she's 100% wrong for that part. In 1952, however, Betty stars in a movie

called The Star, which was in fact a thinly veiled jab at Joan Crawford written by a former friend of hers, Catherine Albert, who Jonah had a fallen. out with. Now, unlike William Randolph Hearst's possibly unfounded hatred of Citizen Kane, this one was less sympathetic, let's say, to its lead. It was very like she's a washed up actress. She doesn't get that she doesn't have it anymore. Like she's trying to be this young, you know, sexy thing and she's too old. And it's like, it was, it was rough. And it was clearly about Joan Crawford. So while everything I just told you was true, at least according to the press, there's no real indication that Crawford and Davis truly hated each other prior to

the actual filming of whatever happened to Baby Jane. The real feud begins on set and after. So let's talk about where the actresses were before the movie. Betty had actually put an ad out in variety looking for acting work. This is not to say that she was like hard up for cash. It's just to say she was extremely frustrated and not getting parts. Chris, why don't you read the copy of the ad that she posted. All right. Mother of three, 10, 11, and 15, divorcee, American. 30 years experience as an actress in motion pictures, mobile still, and more affable than rumor would have it, once steady employment in Hollywood has had Broadway. Betty Davis, courtesy of Martin Baum, GAC, references upon request. That's real. That's wild. That's real. Oh,

Oh, my God. I mean, it's terrible that she had been just left out in the cold like that. I mean, this is someone who's like... She has a sense of humor about herself. Oh, she's super funny. Betty Davis is absolutely hilarious. And I think genuinely mean, but that's okay. Yep. Joan had also made a series of clinker movies and had done some like guest spots on TV shows. However, she was seeing quite a bit more personal success. She had married a man named Alfred Steele in 1955. He was an executive at Pepsi when they married and became the CEO while they were married before

he died four years later in 1959. Joan had been sort of an ambassador for the company while he was alive. And when he died, they told her that she was relieved of her duties. As you may imagine, this did not go over particularly well with Joan Crawford. She leaked some info to the tabloids. And if you would like to believe Mommy Dearest sat all of the board members down and said, don't fuck with me fellas, this ain't my first time at the rodeo. One of my favorites. Oh, I believe she said that. I think she might have.

She was not to be messed with. Regardless of whether or not that is true, she miraculously becomes a board member and assumes his seat at the table. So financially, Joan's doing fine. Now, where does whatever happen to baby Jane begin? It actually begins with Joan. She approached Betty Davis backstage after Betty's performance in Night of the Aguana on Broadway. Now, according to Crawford, it was her idea to adapt the novel with the two of them in the leads.

It should be noted that according to Robert Aldrich, casting Davis was his idea. And the only reason he didn't meet her in person was because he wasn't in town that night. But Joan, regardless, does manage to convince Betty to join the project pretty quickly. Yeah. And this does speak volumes about Joan Crawford because while they both said some pretty shitty things about each other, Betty had also starred in that movie, which was a jab at Crawford. And I think honestly, this isn't Crawford extending an olive branch so much as it is her being an extremely smart businesswoman. Yes.

This is her realizing, like, the best version of this movie is the two of us. I don't even think it's that as much as it's her knowing their history, knowing how much the press has eaten up their rivalry. That's what I mean from like a financial perspective, the best version of this movie is the two of us. Exactly. Yes. It turns out according to an interview with Heda Hopper published in the LA Times in 1962, Heta. Hedda will show up again, that Davis had previously had interest in the book as well.

Betty claims to have sent it to Alfred Hitchcock a year before they set the picture with Joan and Robert Aldrich, but that Hitchcock simply had other projects lined up. I think in the timeline he had just, he was like doing press for Psycho and he was trying to get the birds off the ground. Davis agrees on two conditions. One, that she gets to play the lead in the title role, which was a very, fine. I don't think Joan Crawford had any intention of playing baby Jane. And two, that the director promised he was not sleeping with Joan because Betty wanted to make sure she wouldn't get favored with more closeups, which was fine with everyone. Yeah, I looked up Robert Aldrich. She's not

that good looking again. No. Yeah. Now, Joan had worked with Robert Aldrich on one of her previous movies, Autumn Leaves, and while she was a little pissed that he didn't take some of her script notes because she was used to like completely getting her way on set, she did like the way that he responded to her as a director. And so she did want to work with him again. And that's how this came about. Now, Aldrich actually had a lot of trouble finding a studio to finance the deal, which, like, when looking at this is kind of surprising, you've got two major names on this.

It's based on a book that had already been successful. You know it's commercially viable IP. Nobody would touch it. In fact, when Aldrich first brought the picture in front of Jack Warner of Warner Brothers, Warner looked at the two leads attached to the film and allegedly said, I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either of those two old broads. Isn't that pleasant? Lovely guy.

Eventually, it does find a home with Seven Arts, which was a smaller production company that basically made, it financed films on the assumption that larger studios would distribute them. It would be absorbed by Warner Brothers in 1967. But Seven Arts only agreed to do it on an aggressively low budget of around 980,000 by some accounts. So both Joan and Betty agreed to. to significantly lower salaries in exchange for back-end percentages of the profits. Remember this because it will be important later.

It's a very small cast with Betty and Joan in place. There's really only one other character, which is Edwin. Chris, do you want to explain what Edwin's relationship to baby Jane is? It's strange. So Edwin is a fully grown man boy. And Victor Bono's like, he's got to be 6, 3, 6.6.4 turns... Giant baby. 60 pounds.

And he's hilarious. He's a, he's a down on his luck living with his mother pianist, who is attempting to grift slash just milk Jane Hudson for money in agreement. He's basically agreeing to play out her fantasy of this return to the stage. He'll be her accompanist as she sings and dances. And he just tells her what she wants to hear, basically. He's like a musical jiggle.

Meanwhile, he's inwardly horrified by everything he's seeing. Every cutaway to Victor Bono is him just making every single disgusted face in the book of disgusted face. They cut back and he's like, ugh. And then they cut back and it was like, oh. So good. So originally, Victor Bono was not who was cast to play Edwin. The person who was supposed to play Edwin was an actor named Peter Lawford, who I looked up, not a ton of like stuff of note, had done some TV shows, couple movies.

However, his bigger claim to fame was that at that moment, JFK was his brother-in-law. He was related to JFK by marriage. And either he or JFK thought that this was not the best role for someone associated with their family to take. And he swiftly dropped out after having accepted it. Thankfully, this paves the way for Victor Blono to. swoop in very quickly. The director had seen him in one episode of I think it was the untouchables. Yeah, I mean, they say introducing. Yeah, he's very young. He'd not done a lot, but man, does he kill

it? All right, some of the cool things that went sort of wrong during the shoot we're going to talk about before we get to the more salacious stuff. Do you remember the couple of moments where baby Jane imitates Blanche's voice on the phone? Yes. Yes. So it's particularly creepy because it is Joan Crawford's voice being dubbed over Betty Davis. I assumed it was, but it's really well done. It's very well done. They tried having Betty Davis do it. And if you've ever heard Betty Davis talk, it wasn't going to happen.

So they realized there was no way and they were just going to have to dub it over, which they do. And the result is very unnerving. It's very well. I mean, the sink is perfect. Like the performance matches. Her face changes when she does the voice is so creepy. All of a sudden, she seems sophisticated and in control. Her eyes get so much bigger and she does the weird, like, God, she's so good.

I'm 90% sure that Heath Ledger just watched whatever happened to baby Jane before doing Joker and Batman. And, like, literally based his makeup on her makeup too. The makeup looks exactly like it. According to Davis, they also intended to shoot the film in color initially, but she pushed back and insisted that it be shot in black and white. Interesting. And I think, like, a big part of the reason why. she and Joan Crawford had so much say in this is that they took they did it for almost no money. Right. Yeah. So I wonder why they wanted to. I mean, it's cheaper to shoot black and white. So it would have

helped the budget. I just want, I mean. I think color was something that maybe was helping movies. This is a guess, but was, you know, still relatively new and might have been something that could have been considered, you know, a box office bump. But her point was it would have sort of beautified a movie that was grotesque and sort of deserved to be in shades of gray. Interesting. Another scene. Now, you may have noticed while watching that the driving scenes in this movie look a little different than some other old movies. Did that stand out to you at all?

I guess, yeah, a little bit. If you're used to watching old movies, at least I expect the sort of situation where it's like they're clearly in a car. Right. They're in a car on a lot. And then there's the projection of the road behind them. And it does not match up with their movements. And like, that's how it was done. This looks different.

And this is the first time I noticed this watching it. this time, I was thinking like, man, that doesn't look like that. Like, it, it looks better in many ways. That is because they did not have enough money to do the regular type of sort of old school green screen projection they were doing. So they really just put a cameraman in the back seat of the car and let Betty Davis drive down Beverly Boulevard in full baby Jane makeup. And she said people were like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. And she drove past them. Speaking of, the makeup. This is my favorite thing I learned in researching this movie. She did her own makeup. And that is because allegedly no makeup artist would agree to do what she was asking them to do.

In fact, she did approach several of some of the top makeup artists in Hollywood. One even said that he was afraid he might never work again if he did what she was asking him. I mean, I get it. Everyone's supposed to make actresses look beautiful. And she's like, I want to look like a monster. baby. Yeah. And that's not really a calling card. Well, she did a great job. She did an amazing job. She said she wanted to look like the women that she saw wandering Hollywood Boulevard who looked like these former silent film actresses that had just sort of washed up. Something else she said was that she wanted it to look like Jane never washed her face. She just put another layer of makeup on. Oh, it looks like that. Did she nail it? Yes. So the director and the production team were

actually concerned about the makeup and thought that she had gone too far, like that it was too upsetting and weird. Yeah. Maybe in color, in black and white it works. In black and white, it's still rough. No, it's jarring. Don't get me wrong. But she stuck to her guns and she was like, nope, this is it. Like, this is what the character would wear. And then to her credit, when the author saw her in the makeup, he was like, oh, nailed it. And as you put it out earlier, she did have a history of not being afraid of making herself really look like shit on camera, which was extremely unusual. She had done The Virgin Queen where she played Queen Elizabeth.

She did shave part of her head for that. She'd done another movie where she played someone who, like, died of consumption. And she looked like really rough, like really rough, not Hollywood TB at the end of that. It was like real TV. And Joan Crawford, interestingly, had previously commented on it in the press. She said, quote, Miss Davis was always partial to covering up her face for motion pictures. She called it art.

Others might call it camouflage, a cover up for the absence of any real beauty. Oh, ye. Jesus. Oh, I'm so glad I didn't like work in these circles at this time. I would have just had a mental breakdown. I love it. Now when Betty's daughter, who we previously mentioned, saw her mother in makeup for the first time, she said, oh, mother, this time you've gone too far.

Oh, these people. All right. So let's get into the stuff that allegedly happened on the set. Of their respective roles, Joan once said, quote, I'm the crippled sister in a wheelchair. There are scenes that will tear you to pieces. When we rehearsed this morning, Betty practically tore the setup.

She whirled my wheelchair around, lifted it six inches from the floor. This is wonderful for me. I usually play the bitches. Now I can sit back and watch Betty do it. Okay. Fair? Yeah. Now, as you may remember from earlier in the conversation, and of course the iconic boardroom seemed in Mommy Dearest, Crawford had of course been married to the CEO of Pepsi and was now on the board. Naturally, this led Betty Davis to having a Coca-Cola machine installed in her dressing room that she would prominently put on display and drink everywhere she went. She just cracks one before every take. She literally did. Some other salacious rumors about things that allegedly, I'm just going to put a big allegedly at the top of this whole.

whole section because it is all very hard to confirm, but these are all written about. One is that Betty Davis allegedly called Joan Crawford. I'm sorry to my mom and grandma who listened to this podcast. It's Betty Davis's fault. A phony cunt and sent her a note telling her to get off the crap when Joan had been trying to curry favor with the rest of the crew. Get off the crap. Get off the crap. I will say a phony cut is like such a good. insult because it implies that if she was a genuine cunt, that would be okay.

Like that would be a good thing. Honestly, though, that is my take on Joan Crawford and Betty Davis. I think Betty Davis was very genuine. I think she was very upfront about the fact that she was kind of a bitch. I think Joan Crawford was like... Too time in it. Yeah, she was like possibly evil to her core. Right.

Or at the very least, she was, you know, she was not a nice lady at heart for whatever reason and there might be there. It's not to say she's not talented, but she put on this act and this show of being very polished and very kind and generous. And, you know, she adopted all these kids who she beat with wire hangers and privacy. Allegedly.

Now, Crawford also claimed that Betty Davis actually hit her in the head when they were filming the scene where Jane beats Blanche. Oh, I believe it. I kind of do too. Some, it looks like it. Even when she slaps her in the face. Oh, she for sure, it slaps her in the face. She pulled that real well.

She hit her hard. If there was no contact. No, there's for sure contact. You can see her slapping her in the face. Some versions of that story said that Crawford actually needed stitches. I don't believe that. I don't think Joan Crawford would have let that not be written about immediately

if that were the case. Also, that's one of my favorites. in the scene where Betty has to drag Joan, it's always been rumored that Joan Crawford wore like weights or a lead belt underneath her clothes to make it difficult for Betty who had back problems to drag her. Oh, that's terrible. I will say, knowing that and watching the movie, I believe that one too, because if you watch that scene, Joan Crawford is tiny. She's like five three. She probably... And she's very, very skinny. She weighs like 110 pounds. She's basically disappeared by that part of the movie. She's super,

super skinny, but it does look like Betty Davis is dragging like 220 pounds across the floor, and she is like visibly sweating trying to do it. That is true. About that scene, the director said basically that

Joan wanted to see Betty in pain. Now, Davis thoroughly enjoyed poking fun at Crawford on set because she said she had pretty much zero sense of humor. And I kind of think that that's where this started. I think there No, that 100% is clearly true.

Like, my impression after reading all of this is that, yes, there was this sort of drummed-up feud in the media, quote-unquote, prior to this time. But I think they came to this film because they wanted to work together. Like, I don't believe that they hated each other going into this. Certainly not to the, yes, certainly not to the point where, you know, they couldn't be in the room together, obviously. No. You know, and so, but obviously Joan Crawford seems like a humorless person.

person. Yeah. And Betty, Betty Davis is clearly someone who thinks life is a cosmic joke. And like, that is a deadly combination. Yeah. Especially when they're both used to having their way. And I think also both very, like, deeply insecure people, because a lot of this comes from both of them kind of trying to win the affection of the crew and going about it in very weird and backhanded ways. So the filming wraps. It shot very quickly. Other than the aforementioned kicks to the head and weight belts, went well. They apparently finished shooting around September 12th. One month later, they held a sneak preview in Long Beach. Holy crap. Yeah. A month later, that's last action hero scheduling. It is

last action hero scheduling. Betty basically said that like Robert Aldrich was like cutting this as they went. He was cutting it in the camera. That's what she said. Like it was just they were really only shooting what they needed. Well, and visually the movie's super, well, this was very interesting. The movie is incredibly simple, obvious, in the way that they shoot it. And it was just interesting we had just on Citizen Kane recently. Visually, Citizen Kane feels more modern than what happened to Baby Jane. I think that's on purpose, though. Even though it was filmed 23 years prior. Yeah. But I, partially, I think it's on purpose. I do think it's largely a consequence of the budget. When you can't spend a lot of time on sophisticated camera setups and big sets and, you know, a lot of takes, like,

you just have to simplify. And I think Aldrich intelligently realized. this movie's going to live or die on these two performances. Let's put the camera in there and get out of the way. I think that's right. There's not a lot of like flourish to this outside of the acting, which is. It's a play, basically. So it comes time for the press tour. Now, I want to send you something else, Chris, to have you look at this.

So I want you to take a look at the movie poster that they were using to market whatever happened to baby Jane. You'll notice that first of all that the doll on the poster does not. even remotely match the doll in the movie. That is because the marketing team was doing the posters while and before the movie had shot because they knew they were like, we have six weeks to do this. But the other thing, I think it's very interesting that the marketing is all about the two of them and not just the two of them is all about the two of them pitted against each other. You'll notice that the words on the poster are, sister, sister, oh, so fair,

Why is there blood all over your hair? They're not hiding much with this. There's also a little caveat on some of the posters that was like, things to remember when you go see Baby Jane, like, don't be frightened. And then the last thing it says is like, try to remember that this is just a movie when tensions get too high. So the press 100%, the entire marketing campaign for this movie was Betty Davis and Joan Crawford. You never thought you were going to see him on screen together because they

fucking hate each other, but guess what? Here they are. And are they going to really kill each other? Go see the movie to find out. That's what it was. So that's why I'm hesitant to believe a lot of the stuff that was drummed up because, frankly, a lot of it was drummed up as press for this movie. Right. Yeah.

Here's where the real shit goes down. They're scheduled to do a press tour for the movie when it releases, but Joan Crawford drops out at the last minute. Now, Betty Davis said Joan Crawford dropped out because she didn't want to be on stage next to her and knew that she would be upstaged. Joan tells a different story. Joan says basically that she had called Betty because Joan saw an early screening of the movie and loved it. And she called Betty Davis to say, like, please go see it. I think you're going to be really proud of this.

It's great. Like, you were great in it. Go watch it. According to Joan, Betty goes and watches it. and then promptly calls up Joan and says, you were right, what a good job I did. Thanks so much. Bye.

To be fair, she's not wrong. She's not wrong. But it definitely put a thorn in Joan's side that Betty... Oh, yeah. Here's what I gathered. I think Joan thought that her part would be just as vibrant as Betty's would on screen. And I think she begins to realize very quickly, it's not.

And it's Betty's movie. And by the way, like for most of the last 45 minutes, Joan's not even on screen. She is unconscious. She is literally tied, hog tied with tape over her mouth. And Betty's like, don't talk now. And she just walks away. And we get more Betty Davis time.

Yeah. Yeah. So as we have discussed, the standout performance in this belongs to Betty Davis, which leads to a best actress nominee. for Betty Davis. Now, it seems that Joan very much expected to also get one. A best actress nomination? I think she expected minimum supporting actress.

Yeah, I was going to say, even just based on screen time, I don't think she could get I don't think so either. Pest actress. But. So she did not get a best supporting nomination. She gets nothing, which is a little rough. She is really good in this. So I can see that being a dig.

So Joan being the sweet. kind, generous angel that she is, decides to call up all of the other best actress nominees who are nominated alongside Betty Davis and just let them know that should they for any reason be unable to attend the Oscars, she would be happy to accept the Oscar in their place. Can you just do that? Can you just, I'm going to start calling people to tell them, listen, hey, you can't make it. I got you covered. That's what she did. No problem. Yeah. Oh, man. She's I got you. Betty Davis finds out about this and she's like weird, but you know, whatever. Like she was pretty sure she was going to win. She was definitely the frontrunner. However,

Betty has since claimed and it does seem relatively likely that Joan had actively campaigned against Betty with the Academy voters. Oh, and by the way, if you don't think the Academy Awards can be swayed, go watch Green Book. You for sure can. Yeah. Yeah. Because Citizen Kane was iced out largely because Hearst campaigned against it. So anyway. Joan actually teams up with none other than Head a Hopper to basically ensure that Betty Davis's chances were diminished. Oscar night rolls around and while Betty is thoroughly prepared to stand up and accept her third Academy Award, the person that wins is Anne Bancroft for the miracle worker. Guess what? Anne Bancroft couldn't make it to the Oscars.

Oh, no. Yep. So guess who sachets past Betty Davis without even acknowledging her or yes, slowly waves at her. I just have this image of Joan like sauntering past her, like waving as she goes. Okay. So Chris, I'm going to send you another picture. I want you to look at this. This is Joan Crawford at the Oscars, holding Anne Bancroft's Oscar like it is hers and posing with the real Oscar winners from the night. Yeah. include Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, and Maximilian Schell, and then jammed right up in the middle is little Joan Crawford. Oh, yeah.

Joan's like, I'm just going to hold this right here, guys. Just going to hold it right up next to my face. She's a weird lisp now. Oh, my God. It's, I mean, it is one of the most ice cold moves I think anyone's ever done. She never said anything to Betty Davis. She didn't say sorry. I mean, this was, to me, I think this is where the actual deep, deep hatred is bred.

Now, remember, this is particularly nuts because both actresses had accepted lower salaries in exchange for a percentage of the box office. And as Davis put it, it would have meant a million more dollars to our film if I had won. Joan was thrilled I hadn't. Because especially back then, the movie probably would have gotten a second release after the Oscars if it had won an Academy Award. Yeah, 100%. Joan Crawford cost them both money just to get up there and rub it in Betty Davis's face. But look how happy she looks in this picture.

I feel like it was worth it. I like that she doesn't show up to collect her own Oscar just in case she doesn't win. in, but she does show up and pose for the press photos with everybody else for someone else's Oscar. Oh, yeah. Now, interestingly, because of the success of this movie, and it was, as we said, very commercially and critically successful, they were all going to get the gang back together again.

Robert Aldrich, Betty Davis, and Joan Crawford, they had all approached the same author for another movie. Do you know what it is? What is it? It is a movie called Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I've not seen that. It's very good. Highly recommend.

But when you watch it, you may notice that Joan Crawford is not in it. That is because by the time, basically what happens with hush, hush, sweet Charlotte is that there is such genuine hatred between the two of them. It is not a functioning workplace. Like, they really can't do it. Betty Davis. And guys, if you've created a hostile work environment in 1963, you've got to know that it's a hostile work environment. You have made it bad.

Yes. Betty Davis was known for doing things, like getting together the entire casting crew for photo ops with Coca-Cola and like a bunch of other weird stuff. And she would do things like make sure nobody was there to pick up Joan Crawford at the airport. It all kind of leads to this like paranoia on Joan Crawford's part. They actually started filming. Like she got a couple weeks into filming. And it was so bad.

Oh, wow. And she was so sort of paranoid that like everybody on set didn't like her because this was Betty's movie. She then in turn becomes paranoid that maybe Betty's sleeping. with the director and she's getting better shots. It leads to Joan Crawford just checking herself into a hospital and being like, I'm sick. I can't work.

And she drops out. She's replaced by Betty's friend and a true icon of the cinema, Olivia DeHavilland. And if you want to see Olivia DeHavalin playing what is perhaps her purest evil self, watch Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I will. Because I really enjoyed this film. Now, Betty outlived Joan by 12 years. When Joan died in 1977, Betty reportedly said, quote,

you should never say bad things about the dead, only good. Joan Crawford is dead, good. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then she poured a Coca-Cola on her grief. Probably. That's so horrible. So I think what we see here is that what went right in terms of marketing the movie,

if you consider the fact that it was successful, that it went right, ends up really being the demise of this working relationship and ruins their chances at ever striking this kind of gold again because you can't deny that they are incredible on screen together. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And this is it. This is the only time you get to see it. I'm trying to think of other instances where on-screen stars hated each other this much, and I'm struggling to come up with examples.

Yeah. But hit this level. Well, and I think when we say this level, it's because this is what the marketing team pushed. Sure. Like, this was the angle. And this was considered kind of like a positive in a way that I'm not sure that it would be in recent years. There's not, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of at least outward competition between performers these. days. It's like there's more, you all want to be in the same Marvel series or, you know, like,

let's get as many of the Chris's in the Avengers as possible. Well, and I think a lot of this was sort of born and bred in the studio system. Yes. Because you had actors. It was all contract players for just that studio. So it was more like a sports system where you had teams, you know, competing against each other. That does make a lot more sense. And if you also think about it from the studio system perspective, not only are they competing against each other for the same parts in a smaller pool, they also don't have agency over what parts they are choosing. So it's just completely up to someone else, which immediately pits you against your contemporaries. And also there is something that actually it's an advantage for the studio system,

because like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, you can just constantly market your star as the alternate to the other studio star. And so, yeah, and that marketplace allows the, them to leverage these women against each other in a way that is unfair and probably was at the beginning largely artificial, but then obviously became real later on. I think it's sad to see sort of the decline of Joan Crawford. Yeah. After whatever happened to baby Jane, she really does not have another hit.

This is it. And she did some real stinkers late in life. And then she died. And it's also hard, I think, because of what made her so striking when she was younger, there was a new generation of actress coming up that was just more striking in that same vein. In this photo, she's next to Sophia Loren, who she's at least 10 or 15 years older then, minimum. More, I think. And Sophia Lorenz just the younger version of what she was.

And then Anne Bancroft was also younger and beautiful. Point being, Betty Davis, the oddness of her look, especially as she got older, it helped her, I think. And I think also the fact that from the get-go, Betty was not particularly relying on her looks. I mean, she was attractive. She was very cute. She got better looking in middle age. Like all about Eve, she's really stunning. And she's, I think, 40 in that, 41.

But yeah, yeah, you're totally right. The fact that Betty did not rely on that helped her, gave her a longer career, not saying that she didn't have the same insecurities. Obviously, she did if this feud was possible at this level. So that's what we. went wrong and eventually right on the set of whatever happened to baby Jane. For what went right for me really quickly in this. So I just watched that movie run with Sarah Paulson. We watched it too. It borrows a lot from this. Yeah. And I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. It was fun. It was extremely well made. I will say the psychological complexity of the characters

in whatever happened to baby Jane is just so much more elegantly executed. And I don't think that's the point of run. But I just love how wonderfully complex and petty and dynamic they allow these two to be and both disgusting yet sympathetic and horrifying. They felt so much more three-dimensional to me than some of these other misery style films that we watch. And I really appreciated the attention that they gave to the motivations of both characters. Because a lot of the movie could feel outlandish and yet it all felt pretty grounded. Yeah. For me, I will say what went right is just how hideous Betty Davis made herself for this.

It is something that I don't even, like, I don't think you see that that often these days. Like, you know, you see a lot of actresses. Of course, there's the joke that, you know, like you make a super beautiful actress ugly to get an Oscar. You're thinking like, it's Charlie Starran and Monster. It's Glenn Close's bid and Hillbilly Aller. It's, you know, Nicole Kidman, they put a schnaz on her for Virginia Woolf, although she still looked fine, but whatever. This, to me, is beyond that.

It's not, like, hideousness for the sake of hideousness. It is something that transforms her so completely, and she's just, she is grotesque. Like, it's not that she's, quote, unquote, ugly or that she looks different. She is repulsive. She's trying to. She's trapped in the child star and it's so good. She's doing the same routines, the same makeup. She's curling her hair the same way.

She's modeling herself after that. It's amazing. I sent a letter to Daddy. Like, oh my God. She's great. She's great. And it doesn't feel like you said, it feels like it's all in service of the character in the movie.

Yeah. Not in service of her reaching for an Oscar. I agree, which she didn't get thanks to Joan Crawford. Well, Lizzie, thank you for that. wonderfully enlightening exploration of whatever happened to baby Jane. It's been such a pleasure ripping through this wild and crazy first season of what went wrong. As I mentioned, we got the green light.

We've been renewed. Carmela, my wife, she said it was okay. Oh, my God. So one thing that would help, though, guys, keep telling people about us. Yeah. Like, you know, you're getting your oil changed. You don't know anything about cars. You know, just drop it.

Drop it. Hey, you like movies? You want to know a lot more about them? Check out what went wrong. David, cut this. Tell a couple people about the podcast. And even better, if you haven't written a review for us yet, please go ahead and write us a review.

It does help us a lot. We appreciate it. And we'll be back. And to the coward that gave us a two-star review. review, but didn't, but didn't write a review? Come on. If you're going to tell us we suck, tell us why we suck, okay? Yeah, don't let us guess, because that'll take us a long time. Exactly. There's a lot to work with you. We will be back on January 5th. Please keep sending us suggestions. We love them. And we'll see you soon. Thanks, guys. Have a happy New Year. Happy Hanukkah.

Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Safe travels. Don't travel. Bye. What went wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing music by David Bowman with cover art from Yuthanauai U-Os. Oh shit.