Grand Dame Guignol

Sometimes over the top, other times way over the top, Grand Dame Guignol was grisly, memorable entertainment buoyed by the sort of movie stars they no longer make: actresses whose talent, intensity, and willingness to take risks with their images made the wildly melodramatic seem frighteningly real.

- Michael Mallory

Once upon a time─the 1960s, to be precise─Hollywood offered great, meaty roles for actresses over 50—as long as they didn’t mind swapping glamour for the grotesque. An entire subgenre of thriller arose that utilized the talents of onetime queens of Hollywood and resulted in some classic, if disturbing films. Initially dubbed “Hag Horror,” it is known today by the more descriptive (and far less insulting) label “Grand Dame Guignol.”

The craze began with 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, based on a 1960 novel by Henry Farrell that chronicled the codependent but toxic relationship of two aging sisters, both onetime stars, who live together in a decaying Hollywood mansion. Jane, the younger one, was once a Vaudeville phenom billed as “Baby Jane,” while her sister Blanche blossomed into an early sound-movie star. Blanche’s career ended in the 1930s when she was crippled in a murder attempt, and 30 years later she is virtually a prisoner in her own house. When the increasingly delusional Jane becomes obsessed with attempting a comeback, things go from bad to deadly. Producer-director Robert Aldrich bought the rights to the book and assigned Lukas Heller to fashion the screenplay. Joan Crawford was his first choice for Blanche, and it was she who suggested that her longtime nemesis Bette Davis be sought for the role of Jane.