Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte!: The Real Drama

Crawford may have been gone, but she was not forgotten. According to Hal Erickson "On the first day of shooting, Davis and de Havilland pulled a "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" routine by toasting one another with Coca-Cola - a catty observation of the fact that Joan Crawford's husband was an executive of the Pepsi-Cola company!"

Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a 1964 American thriller film directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, and starring Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, and Agnes Moorehead, as well as Mary Astor in her final film.

The movie was adapted for the screen by Henry Farrell and Lukas Heller, from Farrell's unpublished short story, "What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?" It received seven Academy Award nominations.

The Real DRAMA behind the Scenes is even delicious & drama !

Following the unexpected box-office success of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), director Robert Aldrich wanted to reunite stars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. After Crawford worked a week in Baton Rouge and only four days in Hollywood, she quit the film, claiming she was ill.

Alain Silver and James Ursini wrote in their book Whatever Happened to Robert Aldrich?, "Reputedly, Crawford was still incensed by Davis's attitude on Baby Jane and did not want to be upstaged again, as Davis's nomination for Best Actress convinced her she had been.

Because Crawford had told others that she was feigning illness to get out of the movie entirely, Aldrich was in an even worse position..." Desperate to resolve the situation, "Aldrich hired a private detective to record her [Crawford's] movements." When shooting was suspended indefinitely, the production insurance company insisted that either Crawford be replaced or the production cancelled.

Davis suggested her friend Olivia de Havilland to Aldrich as a replacement for Crawford after Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Loretta Young and Barbara Stanwyck turned the role down.

Leigh famously said "I can just about stand to look at Joan Crawford at six in the morning on a southern plantation, but I couldn't possibly look at Bette Davis."

Although the Davis-Crawford partnership failed to be repeated, Victor Buono from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was reunited with Davis for Hush. The cast also included Mary Astor, a friend and former co-worker of Davis' during her time at Warner Bros.

Scenes outside the Hollis mansion were shot on location at Houmas House plantation in Louisiana. The inside scenes were shot on a soundstage in Hollywood.

Here is the Storyline of this Amazing:
In 1927 southern belle Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) and lover John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) plan to elope during a party at the Hollis family's antebellum mansion in Ascension Parish, Louisiana; however, it is revealed that John is married to another woman.

Charlotte's father detests the affair and to end it he intimidates John by telling John that his wife had visited the day before and he told her about John's affair with his daughter. To end the affair and return to his wife John feigns to Charlotte that he no longer loves her and is ending the relationship.

Sometime in the evening John is brutally murdered. In the mansion's summerhouse he is decapitated with a meat cleaver and his hand severed. Charlotte discovers John's mutilated body and is traumatized. She walks to where the party is taking place, her white dress covered with John's blood. People assume Charlotte is the murderer.

The story jumps to 1964. Charlotte is now an elderly, wealthy spinster, still living in the family's now decrepit plantation mansion. Also living in the mansion is Velma (Agnes Moorehead), Charlotte's housekeeper.

Charlotte's father died the year following John Mayhew's murder. He died believing his daughter murdered Mayhew. Charlotte believed her father killed Mayhew. The community assumed Charlotte murdered her lover, in a fit of rage after John called off their plans to elope and ending the relationship.

The Louisiana Highway Commission is making preparations to demolish the mansion to build a new highway through the property. Charlotte is vehemently against the state's plan. She ignores an eviction notice and refuses to vacate the property. She keeps the foreman (George Kennedy), his demolition crew, and the bulldozer away by shooting at them with a rifle. They temporarily give up and leave.

Seeking help in her fight against the Highway Commission, Charlotte calls upon Miriam (Olivia de Havilland), a poor cousin who in childhood lived with the Hollis family at the mansion. Separately, Miriam renews her relationship with Drew Bayliss (Joseph Cotten), a local doctor who, after the Mayhew murder, broke off his relationship with Miriam.

With Miriam's arrival at the mansion Charlotte's sanity mysteriously starts to deteriorate. Charlotte's nights are haunted by hearing a harpsichord playing a melody Mayhew wrote for her, and by the appearance of Mayhew's disembodied hand and head.

 Housekeeper Velma, suspecting that Miriam and Drew are after Charlotte's money, seeks help from Mr. Willis (Cecil Kellaway), an insurance investigator who is still interested in the Mayhew murder, and who has visited Mayhew's ailing widow, Jewel (Mary Astor).

Miriam fires Velma, who later returns and discovers that Charlotte is being drugged. Miriam catches Velma trying to help Charlotte escape the house. The two argue at the top of the stairs. Velma tries to leave but Miriam smashes a chair over her head causing Velma to tumble down the stairs to her death.

One night, a drugged Charlotte runs downstairs in the grip of a hallucination, believing John has returned to her. To drive Charlotte completely insane, Miriam and Drew trick Charlotte into shooting Drew with a gun loaded with blanks. Miriam helps Charlotte dispose of the supposedly dead Drew into a swamp. Charlotte returns to the mansion only to see the deceased Drew at the top of the stairs. This reduces Charlotte to whimpering madness.

Now believing Charlotte completely insane and having locked her in her bedroom, Miriam and Drew walk into the garden to discuss their plan: to drive Charlotte insane so they can steal her money. Miriam also tells Drew that back in 1927 she witnessed Mayhew's wife Jewel murder her husband. She's been using this information to blackmail Jewel for all these years, while also plotting to gain possession of Charlotte's wealth.

Charlotte overhears the entire conversation between Miriam and Drew. Charlotte moves toward a huge stone urn on the ledge of the balcony, almost directly over the plotting lovers' heads, and pushes it over towards Miriam and Drew.

As Miriam embraces Drew she notices the urn being tipped and coming down on her and Drew, and also discovers Charlotte glaring at them. The look in Charlotte's eyes tells Miriam the entire conversation was overheard. As she stands stunned at the sight of Charlotte, the massive stone urn crushes the two dead.

The next morning the authorities drive Charlotte away, presumably to an insane asylum. Many neighbors and locals gather at the Hollis home to watch the spectacle, believing that crazy Charlotte has murdered again.

In the car, insurance investigator Willis hands Charlotte an envelope from the now-dead Jewel Mayhew, who has had a stroke after hearing of the incident the previous night. The note contains Jewel's confession to the murder of her husband, John Mayhew. As the authorities drive Charlotte away, she looks back at her beloved plantation, apparently for the last time.

Following the unexpected box-office hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), director Robert Aldrich wanted to re-team stars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. He thought he had the perfect property in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), based on the short story Hush Now...Sweet Charlotte by Henry Farrell who had also written What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 






 The working title was What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?, which was changed because Bette Davis thought the public would think it was a sequel. Davis herself said, "They had already composed a song for the film, and I liked it. It was sort of a lullaby that started off with 'Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte,' and I suggested that might be a better title.

Since Davis and Crawford did not get along despite their very public denials, it is not surprising that Joan quit the film, claiming she was ill. She had accepted the role only on the condition that her name come first in billing. Davis agreed, but only if she were paid more and she ended up making the same as Aldrich who directed and produced it.

Alain Silver and James Ursini wrote in their book Whatever Happened to Robert Aldrich?, "Reputedly, Crawford was still incensed by Davis' attitude on Baby Jane and did not want to be upstaged again, as Davis' nomination for Best Actress convinced her she had been. Crawford worked only four days in all of July. Because she had told others that she was feigning illness to get out of the movie entirely, Aldrich was in an even worse position"...Desperate to resolve the situation, "Aldrich hired a private detective to record her [Crawford's] movements." When shooting was suspended indefinitely on August 4, the production insurance company insisted that either Crawford be replaced or the production cancelled.

Aldrich approached Katharine Hepburn, who didn't return the studio's calls, and Vivien Leigh, who demurred, saying, "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis'." Barbara Stanwyck and Loretta Young also said no thanks. Bette Davis immediately suggested her good friend Olivia de Havilland. "Having ruled out or been turned down by Vivien Leigh, Loretta Young and Barbara Stanwyck, Aldrich flew to a remote resort in Switzerland and somehow cajoled Olivia de Havilland, the last acceptable actress, into taking over the part.

'I spent four terribly difficult days with all the persuasion I could command...I don't believe half of the things I said myself; but I knew there was no other place to go. If I came back without de Havilland, we wouldn't have a picture, because we had gone through all the other people that [20th Century] Fox would live with.'"
 

  Olivia de Havilland later remembered, "I always thought it would be fun if [Bette and I] could work together. Then, I was offered the chance to work with her on the film that became Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte when Joan Crawford withdrew. I knew Bette wanted badly to work, and Jane had been such a success that Bette was quite anxious.





They had to find the replacement, and Bette wanted me. The problem was I wasn't as anxious to work as she was. I didn't need to. I wasn't thrilled with the script, and I definitely didn't like my part. I was reverse-typecast, being asked to be an unsympathetic villain. It wasn't what people expected of me. It wasn't really what I wanted to do. Bette wanted it so much, so I did it. I can't say I regretted it, because working with her was special, but I can't say it was a picture I am proud to put on my résumé. Given the choice, I wouldn't have deprived Joan Crawford of the honor."

She did have positive things to say about the experience: "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte was full of traps, it was a delicate tight-rope walking assignment. I found that very interesting. Aldrich gave it a very special style, a kind of dark glittering style which fascinated me. It's always the charming ones of evil intent who are the dangerous ones; the others you can see coming. But you can't see Miriam [de Havilland's character] coming, and she's really dangerous."

Joseph Cotten who also starred in the film, was also happy with the replacement, as he wrote in his autobiography, "[After Crawford's departure] The story, the project, everything about Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte was too good to scrap. Bob Aldrich put on persuading armor, packed handcuffs and a fountain pen, flew to Switzerland, and brought back Olivia...Olivia and I played lovers in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte . She was a fine replacement. She and Bette worked beautifully together; [Olivia] and I had never worked together before."
 

Crawford may have been gone, but she was not forgotten. According to Hal Erickson "On the first day of shooting, Davis and de Havilland pulled a "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" routine by toasting one another with Coca-Cola - a catty observation of the fact that Joan Crawford's husband was an executive of the Pepsi-Cola company!"

The cast also included Mary Astor, another friend and former co-worker of Bette Davis' during her time at Warner Brothers. Astor wrote, "My agent called: 'There's this cameo in a movie with Bette Davis. It's a hell of a part; it could put you right up there again.' I read the script. The opening shot described a severed head rolling down the stairs, and each page contained more blood and gore and hysterics and cracked mirrors and everybody being awful to everybody else. I skipped to my few pages - a little old lady sitting on her veranda waiting to die.

There was a small kicker to it inasmuch as it was she who was the murderess in her youth and had started all the trouble. And then in the story, she died. Good! Now, I'd really be dead! And it was with Bette - which seemed sentimentally fitting...[T]he locale was the deep South and we went on location to Baton Rouge and it was hellish hot. We worked at one of the magnificent decaying old pillared mansions [the Houmas House Plantation in Burnside, Louisiana] with an avenue of moss-hung trees leading down to the levee. It was an hour's drive from the hotel and we had to get up at the crack of dawn-naturally!

The first day of shooting I was, as always, full of anxiety tremors. Every actor worth his salt has them, and you never get over it. I had lots of dialogue in a southern accent, and I had never worked with the director, Bob Aldrich. Bette was not in the scene and so naturally had the day off. But she had the sensitivity and courtesy to take the long drive out to the location and be a friendly, familiar face on the sidelines. 'Hi, Astor!' said she, 'You look great!' And I knew that she didn't mean the usual Hollywood flattery.

She took a quick look at my costume, listened to my accent, watched a rehearsal, and said to Aldrich, 'Turn her loose, Robert, you might learn something!'". Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte ended up earning several Oscar® nominations, including a Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead, as well as Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Costume Design, Black-and-White; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Song; and Best Original Music Score.