Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Robert Aldrich - 1964 - USA

• “Don't turn on the light. It’s not real when it’s light. It’s only real when it’s dark. Dark and still.”

• Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte is an extremely fun Southern Gothic spooky-old-house thriller with an amazing cast.  Only the hardest of hearts would be unable to enjoy it.

• Director Aldrich’s follow-up to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is richer, more lavish, and features a more imposing cast, and yet it doesn’t pack the same punch; primarily because the element of risk that permeated Jane is absent.

• One of only a handful of noteworthy entries in the “hagsploitation” or “Grand Dame Guignol” genre that was inaugurated by Baby Jane in '62.

• Resentful at potentially being out-shined by Bette Davis again, co-star Joan Crawford dropped out of the film, robbing it of the sense of true rivalry between equals that Davis and Crawford brought to Jane.

• Trying to outdo Jane, Charlotte boasts not just two but four “hags;” Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Mary Astor and Agnes Moorehead, plus two male equivalents, Joseph Cotten and Victor Buono.  Moorehead easily steals the show with her histrionic and yet vulnerable and sympathetic performance as cantankerous housekeeper Velma Cruther.