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Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Rate: 4
Viewed: 10/21

HushHush
10/21: Starring Bette Davis and directed by Robert Aldrich, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte run for 134 minutes and 133 minutes, respectively.

They're both very long, and nothing happens until the last half hour. Too much melodrama and cheesy acting pass for a great deal of time in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I kept waiting for a point until one was finally provided by Olivia de Havilland's character which saved it from sinking further to receive an intended rating of '2' from me. For a play, Robert Aldrich did much better with The Big Knife.

Taking the same old crap from Bette Davis for more than four hours is insane. Even worse is the shrill performance by Agnes Moorehead. It's simply awful. How she was ever nominated for an Oscar, I'll never understand. It's interesting to see a couple of well-known actors in small bits before they'll hit big: Bruce Dern and George Kennedy. The Maltese Falcon's Mary Astor wraps it up by appearing in the final film of her career.

Joseph Cotten is okay, having learned a thing or two from Gaslight to play tricks on Charlotte, but it's Olivia de Havilland who steals the movie because she's the only real character. It's certainly something different coming from her. Imagine Olivia going from Melanie Hamilton the saint to Miriam Deering the scheming bitch. The role was meant for Joan Crawford, but she got replaced shortly into the filming. Now, that would've been too much.

All in all, cut the fat out from the first 75 minutes, and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte can play better this way.