WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE?

US, 1969, 101 minutes, Colour.
Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller, Mildred Dunnock.
Directed by Lee H. Katzin.

In the mid-1960s, Robert Aldrich directed Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Capitalising on this title, this horror thriller is Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? In the 1970s there were a number of similar films with titles like Whatever Happened to Helen? Who Slew Auntie Roo?

Geraldine Page, who had made such an impact in the 50s and 60s with such films as Hondo and Sweet Bird of Youth, gives a frightening caricature of a widow who is left nothing but a stamp album, retires to the Arizona desert and murders her housekeepers to get their money. Along comes Ruth Gordon, also full of mannerisms and strange voices, who is looking for the explanation for the disappearance of a friend (Mildred Dunnock). She challenges Mrs Marrable and there is a build-up to the confrontation between the two women.

Ruth Gordon had just won an Oscar for best supporting actress in Rosemary’s Baby. Geraldine Page was to win an Oscar in 1985 for The Trip to Bountiful.

The film is an amusing variation of Grand Guignol. Lee H. Katzin was a television director who made a few feature films at this period: Heaven With A Gun, Le Mans, The Salzburg Connection.

1. The title and its indication of the Hollywood tradition of elderly actresses in horror thrillers? The quality of this particular example? Expectations of the audience and their fulfilment?

2. The importance of a highly exaggerated and gory plot? Gothic horrors transported to America? Strong acting styles? How skilful the two leading ladies?

3. The melodramatics of the plot, characterizations? Acted to the hilt? How necessary for this kind of film?

4. Colour, music, the ordinary American settings and this kind of Gothic horror transferred to the wide open spaces of America? How well did the blending work?

5. Geraldine Page's style as Mrs Marrable, her appearance, her articulation. her expressions? The importance of the pro-credits sequence and the revelation of her character, the gradual revelation of her losses leading to motivation and madness? The transition to seeing her in her successful career exploiting the loneliness of her companions an well as their bank books? Was she a credible person? A type? Her moods, arrogance, madness? How credible a villainess? How interesting?

6. The presentation of her career and her making of money, her manner of killing her companions and burying them? The transition to her life with Miss Tinslay? Their clashes, her taunting of her, her making her a slave, her killing her? The irony that she was to be unmasked?

7. The arrival of Mrs Dimmick? Ruth Gordon as a contrasting elderly lady, a more humorous type? Her interview, her wanting the job? Her attitude towards Mrs Marrable, gradual revelation that she was Miss Tinsley’s friend? The danger in which she stood, her trying to cope with the danger? The irony that she also was destroyed by Mrs M arrable?

8. Mrs Marrable’s nephew and niece and their place in society, their attitude towards their Aunt, parties? Their greed?

9. The subplot concerning Harris and her son? More conventional types? Coming from the East to the West, their settling next to Mrs Marrable and her reaction of hostility, the dog? Harriet's suspicions, especially about Darrah? Their gradual involvement in the plot? Harriet's regard for Mrs Dimmick? The visit to Mrs Marrable, being drugged, the fire? The romantic subplot appropriate for the film?

10. The introduction of Darrah and his work, suspicions, his relationship with Mrs Dimmick, Harriet's suspicions, romance? His fear for his Aunt and his not being able to save her?

11. The importance of coincidences, especially in Mrs Marrable discovering the truth? The confrontation?

12. How important for the success of the film was the interaction between the two ladies? Friction, hostility, Mrs.Dimmick submitting to Mrs Marrable? The possibility of their being successful? Mrs Marrable’s searching especially after Mrs Dimmick went to town telling lies? Her smooth disposing of Mrs Dimmick's body?

13. The importance of clues like letters, handwriting? Mrs Marrable disguised as Mrs Dimmick and the ugliness of her killing of Mrs Dimmick?

14. Her complacency, her drugging Harriet and the boy? The fire and the irony of its being put out and her waking up to being arrested?

15. The macabre madness as she confronted her garden and the revelation of the truth? The more important irony of the wealth in the stamp collection?

16. How entertaining are such thrillers? Indications of human nature? Macabre moralizing?