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Post by rick on Mar 19, 2023 23:03:35 GMT -5
"Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" is probably the best known of the film genre starring leading ladies a bit longer-in-the-tooth (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Olivia deHavilland, Shelley Winters, etc.) that came to be known as Hagsploitation. Former glamorous stars now appearing in more horror-themed stories.
Found a mash-up on YouTube.
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Post by erik on Mar 20, 2023 8:21:45 GMT -5
It was certainly well known that both Crawford and Davis legendarily feuded, which made some of the crazy things that go in in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? all too believable (though I'm willing to believe that the director Robert Aldrich had a bit to do with that as well).
It's also a little less well known that Crawford took the role in the TV pilot film Night Gallery that had been meant for Davis supposedly because Davis refused to work with the (very) young director that Universal had assigned to it. That very young director, by the way, was Steven Spielberg (YIPE!).
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Post by alyn on Mar 23, 2023 12:06:03 GMT -5
Sunset Boulevard is one of my favourite films and I guess at the time film fans probably bought into the 'real life' story that Gloria Swanson lived in that kind of environment as her 'glory days' of film making were a long time gone. She played it magnificently even though (I think) she was third choice for the role, she made it very much her own and a tour de force, even viewing one of her own silent films in the film as she re-lived the past. Her performance was such a great example of taking a role to an almost over-the-top point while staying completely in control. The scenes with Cecil B Demille being the most poignant. I guess it doesn't count as Hagsploitation as it's not a horror. The film was often described as Black or Dark Comedy but to me it belongs more as a Film Noir, I don't really see any shade of comedy in it.
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Post by musedeva on Mar 26, 2023 0:27:22 GMT -5
Speechlesss.....absolutely speechless absorbing that......halfway about to crack up...and then misogynistically figuratively stopped@@@!!ahahah.....whoever did that has a great sense ah Rhythmmmmm................................... "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" is probably the best known of the film genre starring leading ladies a bit longer-in-the-tooth (Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Olivia deHavilland, Shelley Winters, etc.) that came to be known as Hagsploitation. Former glamorous stars now appearing in more horror-themed stories. Found a mash-up on YouTube. |
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Post by rick on Mar 26, 2023 2:56:40 GMT -5
Genres of Horror Films Psycho-biddy / Hagsploitation -- " Films in this genre conventionally feature a formerly glamorous older woman who has become mentally unbalanced and terrorizes those around her. " Psycho-biddy is a film subgenre which combines elements of the horror, thriller and woman's film genres. It has also been referred to as Grande Dame Guignol, hagsploitation, and hag horror.[6][7][8] Per Peter Shelley, the subgenre combines the concepts of the grande dame and "Grande Guignol". Films in this genre conventionally feature a formerly glamorous older woman who has become mentally unbalanced and terrorizes those around her.[9][10][11] The genre is considered by scholars such as Shelley and Tomasz Fisiak to have been launched with the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Films in this vein continued to be released through the mid-1970s and per Fisiak, has had an influence on multiple areas including music videos.[12] Renata Adler, in her New York Times review for the 1968 film The Anniversary, referred to the genre as "the Terrifying Older Actress Filicidal Mummy genre."[13] Per Shelley, for a film to fall within the subgenre the movie must use grande guignol effects and have an actress who portrays the lead character as one "with the airs and graces of a grande dame".[6] He further stated that common hallmarks of actresses in the subgenre included those who were "no longer considered leading lady material" or had "previously specialized in supporting roles", and "had not worked for some time".[6]: 2 The term and genre have received criticism, particularly in regard to claims that psycho-biddy films exploit actresses who have experienced or are vulnerable to ageism.[14][6][15] Timothy Shary and Nancy McVittie noted the genre in their book Fade to Gray: Aging in American Cinema, stating that the "cycle of films renders the aging women at their core as monstrously "othered" objects."[16] Bustle writer Caitlin Gallagher criticized the term "hagsploitation", as she felt that it "shows a certain lack of respect for the actresses who starred in these types of movies", further noting that together with the term "psycho-biddy" the terms "use disparaging terms for older women — "hag" and "biddy" — to not only indicate how unattractive the female characters are in these types of films, but to also show that these characters are psychotic."[17] BFI's Justin Johnson commented on the genre, saying that "If Crawford and Davis didn't carve out this niche with Baby Jane and all the films that followed, then a lot of legendary actresses would not have had third career acts".[18] Peter Shelley has argued that criticism of the psycho-biddy subgenre is inaccurate, as it implies that the actress is lowering her standards by acting in a horror film by also implying that her earlier work is superior. Shelley opined that criticism also implies that the actress is only portraying a character out of her normal range out of desperation.[6]
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