Baby Jane Hudson characters, "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte", also starring Davis as a mentally unstable recluse lost in her delusions. Jane and Blanche's story is parodied in an apocryphal comic strip in "" by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. In this film, director Robert Aldrich mined the careers of his two stars, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (who played Blanche), by using their early (circa 1930s) film clips when the story called for examples of their characters' work. The other characters react to clips of Bette Davis's early roles with dismay at her "bad acting", and when clips of Joan Crawford's old movies
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film) professional rivalry upon a belated mutual respect." More recent assessments have been more uniformly positive. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 50 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, ""What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" combines powerhouse acting, rich atmosphere, and absorbing melodrama in service of a taut thriller with thought-provoking subtext." In a retrospective review, "TV Guide" awarded the film four stars, calling it "Star wars, trenchantly served" and adding, "If it sometimes looks like a poisonous senior citizen show with over-the-top spoiled ham, just try to look away ...