Following the hugely successful What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, director Robert Aldrich engineered a second lightning strike by convincing Bette Davis and Joan Crawford to reunite for another gothic shocker, only for Crawford to be pushed out and replaced by Olivia de Havilland. 

The resulting film is a gloriously ripe melodrama that follows the descent into madness of Charlotte Hollis (Davis), a Southern woman suspected of being involved in the unsolved murder of her lover decades before, upon the return of her cousin Miriam (de Havilland), whose altruistic demeanour belies her devious intentions.

Screening as part of Fasten Your Seatbelts: The Films of Bette Davis.

Notes by David O’Mahony