The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, May 10-16
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Whatever your feelings are on Ryan Murphy’s Feud, we can at least credit the FX show for bringing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to the conscience of uninitiated audiences. The bill alone should get you running to the movies; it pits two of the best classic Hollywood actresses against each other, with Bette Davis as a trickster aging ex-child star (“Baby Jane” Hudson) and Joan Crawford as her timid sister Blanche, once a big star in the making and now a paraplegic trapped in the confines of the home she shares with her bully of a sister after a car accident involving a jealous Jane behind the wheel. Aldrich crafts an edge-of-seat psychological thriller in dramatic black and white while his stars give equally great performances on opposite ends of the spectrum. Davis is all cackles and theatrics while Crawford’s acting is that of inward strife. That is, until she finds a rat on her plate. Kristen Yoonsoo Kim (May 10, 2:15pm, 7pm at Film Forum)