Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?

[Eddie Love]

Remembered mostly for rough and tumble testosterone-fests today (notably his classic THE DIRTY DOZEN) director Robert Aldrich has the distinction of having introduced another screen genre entirely, and a highly feminine one at that. With his Bette Davis vehicles WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? and the follow-up HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, Aldrich ushered in a brand new kind of Gothic or grand-guignol shocker. Just get a couple of veteran female stars, lure the audience in with an intriguing, if long-winded, title that alludes to a batty protagonist’s name and sit back for the chills. Call it Harridan Horror. In much the same way images of spooky little girls seemed to dominate horror films at the turn of the last century, their near geriatric counterparts were likewise ubiquitous in the late 60s. While none of the subsequent entries in this line every achieved the popularity (or subsequent cult status) of their forerunners, they held on into the 70s in theaters and on TV. One of this -- by no means large -- catalog was the Aldrich produced WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? a nifty little suspense yarn with one epic acting turn at it’s center,

When the film opens, newly widowed Mrs. Marrable (Geraldine Page) is sitting down with her lawyer to review the estate of her late husband. It seems the departed spouse left the clasping and avaricious woman less than she’d expected. She has no family to speak of, she bemoans, save an estranged nephew in Arizona. Then, in the very next scene, we see her in her new desert home and watch as she murders her housekeeper, burying the poor woman under a pine tree in Marrable's garden one night. (This is still the pre-credit sequence.) How exactly has this once desperate woman ended up making ends meet, we wonder? And what will be the fate of her newest housekeeper (Ruth Gordon)? Oh, and what exactly is under the other pine trees that neatly line her garden?

This picture is more of a slow-burning suspense tale than a full on freight-fest. In fact, it plays a bit like an extended episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and indeed, there are one or two attempts to tease out some tension in the manner of the master himself. But these aren’t quite fully developed enough to get you anywhere near the edge of your seat. Instead, your interest is mainly piqued by seeing how the mystery plays out, and what the other characters who orbit Mrs. Marribe’s world have to do with each other and whether any of them are onto her nefarious doings.

One thing I like about this picture is that is stakes out it’s own terrain in terms of its setting, bypassing the bargain basement SUNSET BOULEVARD grit of BABY JANE or the Southern Gothic trappings of CHARLOTTE. Instead the Arizona setting is remote, yet unnervingly tranquil. There are even some subtle ICE STORM-like scenes of the tacky and decadent locals in the background at parties where Mrs. Marrable holds court as the picture of a refined, moneyed widow. She’s beams as the center of attention, exactly where she imagines she belongs.



And in the end, the picture belongs to Page. A legendary Broadway talent who, until she finally won Best Actress for THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL in the mid-80s, was the losingest female star in Oscar history. Her style, often mannered to the point of eccentric histrionics may seem like a product of the showy 50s Method heyday, but when she’s cooking (in films like THE BEGUILED and her cameo in THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE) she’s an unstoppable force. She may at times peek her head over-the-top, but she’s never less than credible. And I’m not sure she was ever better than she is here. She’s simply mesmerizing; you can’t take your eyes off her, even as she reveals ever more unseemly aspects of this character in a performance without a trace of vanity. And Page never lets her off the hook, she never lets her performance safely consign this villainess to the ranks of evil madness. Rather, her performance is a statement about how the world’s vast reserves of personal cruelty emanate largely from individual selfishness.

Ruth Gordon holds her own as an only slightly more complicated version of her lovable persona. A low-key romantic subplot unfolds with Robert Fuller and Rosemary Forsyth who seem cast to capitalize on their very blandness.

But the most effective supporting turn comes early in the picture as we see Mrs. Marrable’s penultimate housekeeper met her fate and we in the audience get the gist of the crimes that enable Page to secure the comforts that obsess her. Another New York stage luminary, Mildred Dunnock, plays the timid older lady in question and watching the dynamic play out between killer and prey may be completely bloodless, but it’s one of the most unsettling scenes you’ll ever watch. The acting by this pair is sensational with Dunnock the cowed underlying, heart-breakingly at the mercy of her overbearing employer. It’s actually a powerful and affecting sequence, like something out of a 19th century novel.

Given this picture has both a downbeat ending as well as an additional little sting in the tail, it’s odd then that it’s not a bit more impactful. Perhaps, in that sense, Page’s virtuosity overpowers things a little. But no matter, she’s thrilling and set off nicely against this serviceable wholly entertaining tale.