What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

• Robert Aldrich took out a second mortgage on his own house to help finance the film after the major studios balked at bankrolling two 'washed-up' aging stars.
• During the scene where Jane kicks her crippled sister, Bette Davis's kick connected hard enough that Joan Crawford needed stitches. Crawford got her retaliation in a later scene, strapping on a weighted belt so Davis would strain herself dragging her across the floor.
• The film is widely credited with launching the 'hag horror' (aka psycho-biddy/hagsploitation) subgenre. Aldrich fast-tracked a follow-up, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), reuniting him with Davis — but Crawford, originally cast opposite her again, dropped out during production and was replaced by Olivia de Havilland.
• Davis earned her tenth and final Best Actress Oscar nomination for the role but lost to Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker). Crawford, who wasn't nominated, walked onstage to accept the award on Bancroft's behalf — a moment that fed decades of rumors Davis promoted that Crawford had lobbied other nominees against her.

Blanche is not merely a victim but an active manipulator who provoked Jane for decades, using her disability as a shield to maintain moral superiority while hoarding the family wealth.

The entire third act represents Jane's dissociative break; some read the police arrival and beach scene as fantasy constructs Jane's mind builds to avoid confronting what she's actually done to Blanche.

Former child star Baby Jane Hudson has spent decades punishing her paraplegic sister Blanche for a stardom she believes Blanche stole from her. When Blanche quietly arranges to sell their decaying Hollywood mansion and have Jane committed, the torment turns lethal — Jane cuts the phone lines, starves her, and slides further into the vaudeville act she performed as a child. Blanche's attempts to get word out go nowhere, and by the time police close in, Jane has dragged her half-dead sister to a Malibu beach. There, dying in the sand, Blanche finally tells the truth: she staged the "accident" that crippled her decades earlier and let Jane spend her life believing she was the one who did it. The confession comes too late to save either of them — Jane, unburdened and finally the center of attention again, dances for a gathering crowd as the film cuts to black.