What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969)

What makes it different from others?

Amateur movie with Big budget

A different way of telling a story

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

As claimed by the title, this kitsch murder spree is a pastiche of that delectable Betty Davis and Joan Crawford camp classic WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962), in fact, it is produced by the same director/producer Robert Aldrich after the said film and a follow-up HUSH… HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964), so it loosely constitutes a trilogy where the plot pits two aging women, one good, one evil against each other, only this time, the one sits in the director chair is the TV journeyman Lee H. Katzin, who replaced Bernard Girard after four-weeks of filming.In Tuscon, Arizona, an uppity widow Claire Marrable (Page) lives in a house in the desert, she has been bequeathed by her late husband with nothing but a briefcase contains the stamps he had collected. To make ends meet and maintain a well-off front, she bloodily murders her housekeepers, buries them under the pine trees in her garden, in order to take possession of their life-long savings. The gentle Miss Edna Tinsley (Dunnock) is her latest victim. Time to hire a new one, here comes Ms. Dimmock (Gordon), aka. aunt Alice, who is also a widow with no one else in the world, which makes her an easy target. But as time goes by, Claire unexpectedly finds a whiff of compatibility with her. Yet, Aunt Alice has her own ulterior motive, soon suspicion arouses and a cat-fight has been brewing only to leave one of them breathing.The script is inconsistent in shaping up a plausible story (the ending with that deus ex machina is rather lame) and the subplot of a matinée-idol looking Mike Darrah (Fuller), who is the only one could rightfully refer to Ms. Dimmock as aunt Alice, courting a young widow Harriet Vaughn (Forsyth), who lives in a cottage nearby Claire with her son Jim (Barbera), strikes as tedious and out of place.Geraldine Page is in her full-fledged evil form, deliciously camp from her first scene until the very last one (honed up by Gerard Fried's overblown score), as if she was fully aware of the shoddy fodder at her disposal and decided to tirelessly ginger it up with unreserved histrionics to portray Claire's tortured mind, her poisoned thought about "courage to kill" and her absolute selfishness, and it is wonderfully ravishing, she is the one who single-handedly rescues this widow-exploited pulp fiction from being left into oblivion. Ruth Gordon, at the heel of her Oscar-winning victory in Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968), is less memorable in playing an upright role, but little does one know, after rooting for her from the onset, one might overlook that there will be a different denouement for her. Truly evil can never win in the long run, but en route to its doom, it might also take some good souls for company, that is rightfully acceptable under the context, which contrives to e a boon in this patchy murder follies after all.

"What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?" is certainly a guilty pleasure in the tradition of such films as "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Who Slew Auntie Roo?" and "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". All three were old lady thrillers--an odd genre in the 1960s and early 70s that featured old women doing VERY bad things. And, as I said, they are all guilty pleasures--films that were never meant to be deep and intellectual--just kitschy entertainment.The film begins with Clare Marrable (Geraldine Page) bashing her servant over the head and burying her in her yard. Considering she lives in the middle of the Arizona desert, it's not surprising she's not been caught. You soon learn that nasty Clare has made a habit of this sort of thing--she kills off her servants and steals their savings. While you cannot get rich that way, Clare deals in volume--and obviously she is out to add to her growing collection of bodies in the yard. The next one, it seems, is Mrs. Dimmock (Ruth Gordon)--though you aren't terribly sure who is actually hunting who.The film has quite a bit going for it. Geraldine Page's performance is ridiculously florid and over-the-top---and her scene stealing actually adds to the fun. The plot is also really cool. However, the film also has TONS of plot holes--tons. They are especially apparent during the huge (and very violent) confrontation scene between Page and Gordon---and the scene was VERY awkward and ridiculous. Overall, while certainly not a great film, it is VERY entertaining...in a low-brow sort of way.

I've begun to regret that "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" was ever made. Two over-the-hill stars and some cheap sets and a lot of psychological horror must have made a fortune otherwise there wouldn't be so many rip offs.I missed the first 15 minutes or so but don't think it matters much. This is pretty sick. It's my own opinion, and I'm pretty perverted myself -- debauched even -- if you ask my so-called friends and my shrink, Dr. Wilbur C. Veruckt. I promise you, Bill, you've seen the last of my checks. And don't think I don't know what's hanging in your closet.Is there anything more depressing than seeing two ladies who might, most generously, be defined as middle aged trying to kill each other by bopping each other over the head with pocketbooks and telephones? No. There is nothing more depressing.Geraldine Page, stage star, I gather has buried the body of her housemaid in the garden to provide fertilizer. An old friend of the housemaid, Ruth Gordon, applies for the position without revealing her identity. This is a big mistake on Gordon's part, a fatal one as it turns out.The next door neighbor is Rosemary Forsythe, pretty but too tall for me. We're talking women's basketball here. She and her son get somehow involved in the fertilizer business because they've adopted a dog who is attracted to Page's garden, drawn presumably by the scent of cadaverine and the prospect of bones. A loose blond roams the periphery of the story and has nothing to do with it. A deep-voiced young man is around too, exhibiting a talent that belongs on the small screen.The musical score is made up of electronically enhanced orchestral sounds that are dissonant, scratchy, distracting, and frankly irritating. The setting is a rather nice Spanish-style house in the Sonoran desert on the outskirts of Tucson, now probably swallowed up in urban sprawl, but no use is made of the location.If you enjoy seeing some snotty ill-groomed chatelaine sitting in a wheelchair flinging insults at her humble housemaid and nurse in what she, the mistress, seems to regard as high-falutin' speech, then this is your movie. Women are much better than men at humiliating and degrading others. Men have a tendency to simply backhand those they dislike. I kept waiting for Page to come up with some really lethal insult -- "Hence, horrible villain, or I'll spurn thine eyes like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head, Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd'in brine, smarting in lingering pickle." It might have fit the character but the lines never appeared. The writer must have been a dull and muddy-mettled rascal.

Geraldine Page is left nothing of value by the passing of her husband and she has to fend for herself. Fast forward, she goes to live near her only blood kin, a nephew in Arizona. We see her at night in her garden digging a hole with her new companion/nursemaid. She is planting a new pine tree and then all of a sudden she hits her friend over the head. In the morning, there is a new pine tree planted firmly in the ground, in line with the others. Enter Mildred Dunnock, her new companion. There seems to be a pattern here.I, and other Geraldine Page fans, have already died and gone to heaven, as we are shown Miss Page's dark side and another tour-de-force performance. If all you know of Miss Page is "The Trip to Bountiful," "Sweet Bird of Youth," and "Summer and Smoke," then you're in for a treat. There's even a twist in the ending that keen observers will know is coming, even from the beginning. (By the way, if you didn't know, she would provide the voice of Madame Medusa in Disney's "The Rescuers.")Ruth Gordon shows up applying for the position and gives Miss Page a run for her money, who is also a joy to watch. Also starring Rosemary Forsyth, this is one offbeat tale that shouldn't be missed. If you're a fan of "Baby Jane" and "Sweet Charlotte," then move over for Geraldine Page. Better yet, stay out of her way!