SPOILERS WITHIN SUMMARY
"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) should have been the springboard to further successes for stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; instead, both were typecast in increasingly unsavory horror productions, with Davis faring somewhat better than Crawford in this respect.
With "Strait-Jacket," released a scant two years after "Baby Jane"'s flurry of publicity and critical acclaim, Crawford began her descent into B-grade territory; the legendary glamour icon would never again appear in a first class production.
As Lucy Harper, Crawford certainly dominates the proceedings, but gives one of her most laughable performances. The material, to be fair, gives her precious little to work with. Twenty years ago, we are told, Lucy Harper was declared legally insane. She walked in on her studly, younger hubby (a pre-fame Lee Majors) sleeping with the local floozy, and took an axe to both of them.
This initial double murder is shown in flashback, and the scariest thing about it is Crawford's entrance: by narration, we are told that Lucy Harper was "very much a woman, and very much aware of it!" Lucy steps off a train platform, strikes a seductive pose, throws her cigarette over her shoulder and walks to her shabby little house as screeching jazz blares in the background. This would've been a hysterically camp entrance for ANYONE, but the fact that it's a sixty-ish Joan Crawford made up to look thirtysomething (sleazy floral dress, jangling charm bracelets and a ridiculous black wig) transcends camp and sends it into orbit.
Flash forward to the present; Lucy is being released from the mental hospital and coming to live with her daughter, Carol (Diane Baker), and her brother and sister-in-law, on their farm. As soon as Lucy arrives, murders begin occurring again. Who could be behind them? Well, since this is a Joan Crawford film, you can bet that she ain't the villain. (You can also bet that a case of PEPSI makes a prominent cameo appearance, at the behest of the former Mrs. Alfred Steele, international spokeswoman for the soda pop.) Instead, it is revealed at the crazed finale, that Carol is the new murderess--she witnessed the original double homicide, and that trauma, plus her growing resentment of her mother, caused her to snap.
In an obvious nod to "Psycho," Carol-as-a-murderess is shown committing her final crime dressed AS her mother--complete with a rubber mask fashioned after Crawford's face! In a sublimely surreal moment, mother and daughter tussle wearing the same dress, same bad wig...and then Lucy rips the mask off of Carol's face. The only scarier scene possible was when Crawford-in-blackface ripped off her wig in "Torch Song," revealing her flaming orange hair.
There are more howlingly funny scenes: Lucy regressing to her sex kitten past by cranking up bad jazz records, swigging her liquor, and then lighting a match on the spinning record! Brilliant! Or the loony confrontation between Lucy and the rich bitch mother of Carol's fiance, as Lucy freaks out:
MRS FIELDS: It wasn't JUST a sanitorium, was it? WAS IT!!!!!
LUCY: NO! It was an ASYLUM!!!! And it was HELL! Twenty years of PURE HELL!
The completely insane coda has Lucy explaining how Carol carried out her diabolical scheme ("She must have hidden it in her purse," she deadpans--watch the film and understand why that line gives this writer fits of laughter), and then calmly preparing to visit Carol in the loony bin. Never mind that the woman axed two people in a jealous rage. Never mind that she's been portrayed as teetering on the brink of insanity for the last 80 minutes. Suddenly, Crawford is playing her as she would one of her noble, composed 1930's MGM heroines. Absolutely twisted.
The axe murders aren't graphic in the least (there's more gore in the bigger-budgeted, higher-brow Davis vehicle, "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte), and in the end, this is less a horror movie than it is another in a long line of mother vs. daughter Joan Crawford melodramas. However, this is a far way down from "Mildred Pierce." For sheer enjoyment, camp appeal and demented guilty pleasure, "Strait-Jacket" is ideal. And remember: "Don't give away the surprise, shock ending!"
"What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) should have been the springboard to further successes for stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford; instead, both were typecast in increasingly unsavory horror productions, with Davis faring somewhat better than Crawford in this respect.
With "Strait-Jacket," released a scant two years after "Baby Jane"'s flurry of publicity and critical acclaim, Crawford began her descent into B-grade territory; the legendary glamour icon would never again appear in a first class production.
As Lucy Harper, Crawford certainly dominates the proceedings, but gives one of her most laughable performances. The material, to be fair, gives her precious little to work with. Twenty years ago, we are told, Lucy Harper was declared legally insane. She walked in on her studly, younger hubby (a pre-fame Lee Majors) sleeping with the local floozy, and took an axe to both of them.
This initial double murder is shown in flashback, and the scariest thing about it is Crawford's entrance: by narration, we are told that Lucy Harper was "very much a woman, and very much aware of it!" Lucy steps off a train platform, strikes a seductive pose, throws her cigarette over her shoulder and walks to her shabby little house as screeching jazz blares in the background. This would've been a hysterically camp entrance for ANYONE, but the fact that it's a sixty-ish Joan Crawford made up to look thirtysomething (sleazy floral dress, jangling charm bracelets and a ridiculous black wig) transcends camp and sends it into orbit.
Flash forward to the present; Lucy is being released from the mental hospital and coming to live with her daughter, Carol (Diane Baker), and her brother and sister-in-law, on their farm. As soon as Lucy arrives, murders begin occurring again. Who could be behind them? Well, since this is a Joan Crawford film, you can bet that she ain't the villain. (You can also bet that a case of PEPSI makes a prominent cameo appearance, at the behest of the former Mrs. Alfred Steele, international spokeswoman for the soda pop.) Instead, it is revealed at the crazed finale, that Carol is the new murderess--she witnessed the original double homicide, and that trauma, plus her growing resentment of her mother, caused her to snap.
In an obvious nod to "Psycho," Carol-as-a-murderess is shown committing her final crime dressed AS her mother--complete with a rubber mask fashioned after Crawford's face! In a sublimely surreal moment, mother and daughter tussle wearing the same dress, same bad wig...and then Lucy rips the mask off of Carol's face. The only scarier scene possible was when Crawford-in-blackface ripped off her wig in "Torch Song," revealing her flaming orange hair.
There are more howlingly funny scenes: Lucy regressing to her sex kitten past by cranking up bad jazz records, swigging her liquor, and then lighting a match on the spinning record! Brilliant! Or the loony confrontation between Lucy and the rich bitch mother of Carol's fiance, as Lucy freaks out:
MRS FIELDS: It wasn't JUST a sanitorium, was it? WAS IT!!!!!
LUCY: NO! It was an ASYLUM!!!! And it was HELL! Twenty years of PURE HELL!
The completely insane coda has Lucy explaining how Carol carried out her diabolical scheme ("She must have hidden it in her purse," she deadpans--watch the film and understand why that line gives this writer fits of laughter), and then calmly preparing to visit Carol in the loony bin. Never mind that the woman axed two people in a jealous rage. Never mind that she's been portrayed as teetering on the brink of insanity for the last 80 minutes. Suddenly, Crawford is playing her as she would one of her noble, composed 1930's MGM heroines. Absolutely twisted.
The axe murders aren't graphic in the least (there's more gore in the bigger-budgeted, higher-brow Davis vehicle, "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte), and in the end, this is less a horror movie than it is another in a long line of mother vs. daughter Joan Crawford melodramas. However, this is a far way down from "Mildred Pierce." For sheer enjoyment, camp appeal and demented guilty pleasure, "Strait-Jacket" is ideal. And remember: "Don't give away the surprise, shock ending!"