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"Innocent fancies," says the good doctor, "and fixed delusions," the old Hollywood state. The Dixie mausoleum has its scandals, the debutante in her blood-splattered gown is the addled spinster nearly four decades later, thus Bette Davis from Jezebel to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (The vigorous send-up of Southern tropes includes Victor Buono's Big Daddy caricature and the stubborn gorgon facing down the tractors out of Wild River.) The recluse who might be a murderess stands in the way of the new road, the estranged cousin (Olivia de Havilland) and the family physician (Joseph Cotten) have their parts to play in the intrigue. "A persecution complex" amidst poison letters and cracked mirrors, a composition of music box and meat cleaver. "You can't keep hogs away from the trough, can you?" Modern shocks for weathered troupers, the distinct Robert Aldrich glee in a malicious maelstrom. The methodical buildup allows for a portrait of a small town with a dawdling sheriff and a funeral manager who takes pride in his trade, and for de Havilland's mask of graciousness to chip most satisfyingly. (Agnes Moorehead's scraggly fury and Mary Astor's ashen serenity are integral to the astringent vision.) Classical widescreen arrangements continuously jolted, the quivering filters that turn the beau at the elegant soiree into a decapitated mannequin. The genteel corsage conceals a pistol, and there's the desperate drive to the swamp and the viscous grin at the top of the stairs and Aldrich reveling in the irruption of H.G. Clouzot in deep Louisiana. "You sure had yourself a good time today, didn't you, missy?" Justice rains from above, as it were, the calm of the coda is Norma Desmond avenged. With Cecil Kellaway, Bruce Dern, Wesley Addy, William Campbell, Frank Ferguson, George Kennedy, and Percy Helton. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |