corktown common
Thursday, August 7, 2025

what ever happened to baby jane?

With the short films The Women’s Hour and Baby Shower

Robert Aldrich’s diabolical thriller What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? unravels the bitter and at times brutal rivalry between two aging showbiz sisters who have been at each others’ throats since childhood. Bette Davis is magnificently malevolent as the washed-up child star “Baby Jane,” juxtaposed against the restrained intensity of Joan Davis as her terrorized sister Blanche. The themes of celebrity, jealousy, industry exploitation, and what it means to be crowned a star in your youth only to be deemed “past your prime” later in life still resonate today in no small part thanks to Robert Aldrich’s stunningly baroque black and white cinematography.

Originally created with funding from TOPS in commemoration of the festival’s 10th anniversary in 2020, in The Women’s Hour, Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips take direct inspiration not only from What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? but also Bette Davis and Joan Crawford’s notorious offscreen acrimony. This multi-talented duo, who also perform theatre and live comedy as The Templeton Philharmonic, write and play the leads in this dark, genre- and era-shifting suspense comedy centred on the long, bitter aftermath of a feud between two young rising starlets cast opposite one another in a 1959 murder mystery film. Templeton and Phillips also excel at capturing the fast-talking rhythms of screwball comedy, as evidenced by their earlier short film Baby Shower, which pokes fun at the horrors that come along with pregnancy. Together, Baby Shower and The Women’s Hour promise similar thrills and laughs as the pair satirize the trials and tribulations women face at multiple ages and stages of life.

Live audio description is available at this screening for blind, low vision, or visually impaired audience members, upon request. More information about this accessibility feature is available at TOpictureshow.com/audio. Other accessibility features available at TOPS events, including open captioning, are outlined at TOpictureshow.com/accessibility.