One of the great movies about the movies, (and great movies about the
movies aren't reverential, they bite the hand that feeds them), and the
best of Aldrich's 'women's pictures'. Detractors see it as a misogynist
load of horse manure about a couple of self-loathing sisters hauled up
together in a decaying Hollywood mansion, a too-close-to-home study of
the real life rivalry between stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford or
even as a veiled study of homosexual self-depreciation with the sisters
as ageing drag queens. But these are the very things that make the
picture great. It is precisely because it can be read in this way that
makes it such a perversely enjoyable, subversive piece of work.
As
the sisters, Davis and Crawford pull all the stops out and then some.
What makes Crawford's performance great is that she is never sympathetic
even when Davis is feeding her dead rat or quite literally kicking her
when she's down, while Davis is simply astonishing. With her face
painted like a hideous Kabuki mask and dressed up like a doll that's
filled with maggots it's an unashamedly naked piece of acting, as
revealing as her work in "All About Eve" and almost as good.
Unfortunately the film's commercial success lead both actresses into a
downward spiral of not dissimilar but considerably lack-lustre material.
But this bitch-fest is the real McCoy.
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