chiller blog

Posted Feb 3, 09 04:47 PM

Hagsploitation

In 1961, after a most troublesome downturn in her career, the iconic Bette Davis (in-?) famously placed a "Job Wanted" ad in the Hollywood trades. The following year, her ghoulishly quotable tour-de-force -- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? -- shock-paddled her star power within a fistful of pulled hairs for Oscar #3. And that off-screen feud with Joan Crawford only raised the drapes higher on the perverse pleasure. The two actresses truly despised one another.

So… Everyone ready? One, two, three: “But ‘cha are, Blanche! You are…”

Davis stepped back into gothic waters two years later with Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte -- this time, roping along screen vets Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorhead, and Mary Astor. Simultaneously, Baby Jane co-star Joan Crawford worked with showman William Castle and Psycho novelist Robert Bloch on Straight-Jacket -- a shocker whose publicity photo of Crawford modeling an ax turned out to be far more memorable than the movie itself.

Critics chided these films as potboilers – camp exploitation pieces, “Grand Dame Guignol,” “hagsploitation”. (That last one wasn’t very nice, yet why do I still find myself cracking an odd smile?) But for an aging community of veteran actors who deserved far better than scrounging for quality roles in their twilight years, and whose loyal fan bases determined to keep their idols in prominence, a voracious cycle of macabre horror was lunched on: the “Psycho Biddy”.

You know “PB” – deceptively genial, homespun hospitable, and 98% likely to whack you on the back of the skull with a vengeful shovel. Fading, isolated garish mansions typically earmarked the self-imposed mental torture prisons, the vine-choked monuments to early happiness long-since trampled to shards. They provided the stage for a Theater of the Over-the-Top – that fascinating chance to see a cherished screen immortal cut loose (and cut heads). Although Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) is a clear boilerplate – study Gloria Swanson’s alternative reality performance if you experience a moment’s doubt – as are Norman Bates’ stage-bent, darkly comic mother fixations in the original Psycho, neither triggered the immediate impact of a Baby Jane.

The sub-genre went on a manipulative run, with highlights. Or, uhm, fairly high highlights... many of which were, alone, the titles themselves. Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? pits Geraldine Page against Ruth Gordon (fresh off the bountiful older cast of Rosemary’s Baby) as an employer burying her housekeepers to steal their savings. Die! Die! My Darling side shows one of Tallulah Bankhead’s few – but delectable – onscreen roles, holding hostage bride-to-be Stefanie Powers in the years before TV’s “Hart to Hart”. (A young Donald Sutherland watches droolingly by.) In What’s the Matter with Helen?, Shelly Winters is a period right winger mum historied in murder. She hides out with – and perhaps has one last surprise for – desperate pal Debbie Reynolds. Winters pulled a repeat engagement with Who Slew Auntie Roo? This time, a storybook Hansel and Gretel theme plays out as kindly, deeply-damaged Shelly methodically picks off unsuspecting kids.

But the cycle started to run on fumes. The after-effect was the foundation of veteran supporting roles in straighter-played horror films, from A to B. But mostly B. Davis worked increasingly in scare-thrillers (from the plantation mansion of Burnt Offerings to the often-reshot The Watcher in the Woods); rival Joan Crawford ended her own screen career with Trog. George C. Scott and Melvyn Douglas lent credible power to The Changeling, Joseph Cotten did films in Italy (Baron Blood) as well as those he shouldn’t have made at home (The Hearse). Rod Steiger’s let-it-rip emotional meltdowns brought even more notoriety to The Amityville Horror (1979). John Carpenter’s The Fog (1981) and Joe Dante’s The Howling became veritable ensemble reunions. Donald Pleasance anchored five Halloween installments; sweet Betsy Palmer – after an enduring, subtle career – earned infamy for one: Jason Vorhees’ mama in Friday the 13th. But the genre crown casting jewel (never mind the end product) is Ghost Story – boasting Fred Astaire, John Houseman, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. AND Patricia Neal.

Amid a current trend of horror remakes, it’s intriguing to speculate if the branding power of hagsploitation titles will go next. The problems are the melodramatic camp aspect – only sparkable if never planned – and the iconic cement already entrenched. Would audiences truly accept anyone other than a Davis-Crawford? Mayyyyybe. But whoever the players, they’d best loathe one another.

And I mean loathe…