Movie: Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (spoilers)

I oopsied and was late returning last week's Netflix, so I plugged the laptop into the computer and watched something off Instant Viewing. (Unfortunately, Friday evening is not the best time to try to watch Instant Viewing movies due to the high server load, but with some long pauses to build up a buffer, I got it done.)

Now, there were two not-terribly-deep reasons I wanted to see Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.
First, as a young girl, I was a big Darkwing Duck fan, and there was an episode titled "Hush Hush Sweet Charlatan." Now, those episodes never have anything to do with whatever the title was parodying, but I was curious anyway.

Second, it was recommended as one of Bette Davis' better movies, and I thought I'd give her another chance after the slow boring train wreck that was Mr. Skeffington.

So, what did I think of it?
...
My God, the stupid. Lots of movies expect the audience to suspend their disbelief, but this one expects the audience to suspend all cognitive functioning whatsoever.

Unless I am missing something in the unintelligible mumbling that starts the movie, it opens with a young man going to see Charlotte Hollis's father to ask for her hand in marriage

1. Before they elope
2. Despite the fact that he is already married to someone else
3. And that he is NOT in the midst of, or even planning, a divorce.

Ow, ow, ow.
And to make it worse, Bette Davis is playing Charlotte in this scene set 37 years before the rest of the movie. This means that a 56 year old Bette was playing a 19 year old girl. As you can well imagine, this required that there be no good shots of her face. Unfortunately, because her idiot lover's breakup with her and subsequent brutal murder are such a significant part of the opening, this requires some really heavy handed stunts to hide her.

We then flash forward 37 years, and find that the Hollis mansion has been seized by eminent domain and is going to be torn down to build a bridge.
Uhn huh. Charlotte is so rich that the town is named after her family. (Literally; the town's name is Hollisport.) Eminent domain storylines only work with middle class or poorer families, because we all know the rich get to play by different rules. Realistically, whoever did the planning for that bridge would look at the route and go "Ah crap. The lawsuit alone is going to drag this project out 10 or 15 years, and if she realizes that place dates back before the Civil War and has it declared a historical landmark, we're screwed. Let's just see if we can get an easement about a hundred yards from the house, and if that doesn't work we'll just do a bypass on the other side of the property line."

Then we bring in Miriam. The box text spoils most of Miriam's schtick. Before I get to that, though, what's funny is that according to the trivia at IMDB, they had the damnedest time getting anyone to take this role. Joan Crawford had it, but she got sick and they had to replace her. Katherine Hepburn didn't even return their call, Loretta Young said " I wouldn't play a part like that if I were starving," and Vivien Leigh answered "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis." It took the director a flight to Switzerland and four days to convince Olivia de Havilland to take it.

So, most of the movie is Miriam trying to drive Charlotte insane, or at least to a point where she appears so. For some reason, she thinks she's going to have trouble involuntarily committing

1. the town loony
2. who everyone "knows" brutally murdered her lover with a meat cleaver 37 years ago
3. and who tried to kill two people within five minutes after the opening credits
4. and who spends most of her free time searching and calling for said lover who was brutally murdered 37 years ago.

Come on! You want to get Charlotte committed, what you do is go to the nearest judge and say "I think my cousin is crazy and needs to be committed." And you know what he's going to say?
"Oh, you finally noticed that, did you? Give me those papers to sign. I've been waiting decades for this."

No, we spend a long, slowly paced movie going about this instead.
And then, Miriam kills the maid. Whoops. Now we've got this pesky body laying around. What do we do about it?
Well, I'm thinking we want to get Charlotte involuntarily committed, and that requires danger to self or others, so "Oh my gosh, look what Charlotte did." I mean, you've got a dead maid, you might as well use her.
No, that would cut a good 20 minutes out of this turd. Instead they fake that she died in a completely different building while trying to repair her own home's roof. Which means they then have to go and fake Charlotte killing someone else! *head desk*

Finally, if you're going to go give your "how I became an evil villain and just how evil I am" speech, maybe you should make sure your would-be victim is actually sedated. Because it's really a bummer when they wake up and wander into listening distance of your speech -- and an appropriate weapon.

And on top of it all, you get to listen to Bette Davis shriek out half her lines. Yeah. I'm not a Bette Davis fan. In fact, I am probably going to go to great effort to avoid her movies from now on.

So, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte gets a nice big "Don't do it, man!"