User reviews

Lots of mordant humor and a clever plot twist at the end are sufficient reason for watching WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE?, but when a cast includes GERALDINE PAGE, RUTH GORDON and MILDRED DUNNOCK and promises to be a suspenseful film along the lines of BABY JANE and HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE, you owe it to yourself to watch it.

It works not so much because the story (an eerie one, to be sure) is so original, but because the cat-and-mouse aspect of the story which has Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon as adversaries in a household fraught with suspicion (of murder), is what hooks the most interest in this vastly entertaining little shocker.

However, it's a quiet one, building its suspense slowly as we come to realize just how manipulative and cunning Page's character is. She's a woman, believing her husband has left her penniless, who moves to Arizona where she will be near her nephew. But she's intent on hiring lonely housekeepers and murdering them to steal their savings. (Not unlike some real-life events depicted in a gruesome TV documentary recently). After disposing of her victims she buries them in her garden and plants another tree to mark the spot. It seems they flourish nicely, hence my suggestion above for a better title.

Gordon pretends to apply for a job after the last housekeeper has gone missing and is actually doing some detective work on her own. It's her scenes with Page that make the whole film so satisfying.

It's not a great horror film but it does have its moments, thanks mostly to GERALDINE PAGE who does a marvelous job at showing us all the tics and nuances of a very eccentric woman who means to get her way, no matter what she has to do. It's a ruthless, cunning role and Page makes the most of it.

Not-so-grieving widow Claire Marrable is horrified to hear that her supposedly wealthy husband has apparently left her penniless. But, being a practical (and resourceful) type, she hits on a scheme to keep her in the comfort to which she wishes to become accustomed. Relocating to the Arizona desert, she hires elderly housekeepers with no known relatives (but tidy nest eggs) and sends them to their rewards a bit sooner than they planned. And their remains become mulch for the widow's growing garden as each is buried under a quickly flourishing sapling. This later entry in the "horror hag" sweepstakes features absolutely wonderful performances from Geraldine Page, who has a high old time as the haughty, demented and thoroughly relentless Mrs. Marrable, and Ruth Gordon, as Alice Dimmock, her new housekeeper, who isn't quite what she seems to be. On the sidelines are Rosemary Forsyth, herself a (young) widow with a nephew, Robert Fuller as Miss Gordon's nephew, and Joan Huntington as the scheming wife of Page's nephew. With a cast made up of widows and nephews, how scary can "Aunt Alice" be? Not very. But it's a delicious black comedy which allows Page and Gordon the opportunity to give the performances of their lives. There's also a neat cameo from Mildred Dunnock ("Death Of A Salesman") as the luckless servant who precedes Miss Gordon. One of the best "Grand Guignol" films ever made!

Although this movie looks a tad dated in certain respects - for instance a stupid subplot could have been eliminated and no one would have missed a thing - it works because of the brilliant playing of Ruth Gordon and - especially - Geraldine Page. I first watched this film at age the age nine when it was released theatrically: it was actually more enjoyable than the supposed "bigger" picture of the double feature! It is very obvious that Geraldine Page relished playing her role of Claire Marrable: she's totally awesome, so witchy and natural-like in her acting technique. Ms Marrable is a rather narcissistic woman who goes through an astonishing array of household help. Enter Ruth Gordon, a sly fox who comes to Marrable for a position in her lovely desert home. Once hired, the viewer is in for a tour-de-force game of cat-and-mouse. Played to the hilt, this little sleeper creeper is most enjoyable.

An intriguing film with plenty of twists and turns , dealing with an aging widow : Geraldine Page who carries out dark and sinister activities with grave consequences . As a poor , eccentric widow develops an awful habit to inherit states from old women by stealing their savings . Meanwhile , an elderly woman : Ruth Gordon takes a job in hopes of solving a mystery . Whatever happened to Aunt Alice was more terrifying than what happened to Baby Jane ! . The only evidence is a growing number of trees by the drive ! . You'll know ..when the horror starts to grow ! .What makes her garden grow ...wouldn't you like to know !

This is a horrific tale with high body-count , violence , thrills , chills , plot twists and portentous interpretations . It packs an adequate cinematography by Joseph Biroc , as well as moving musical score by Gerarld Fried . Main and support cast are frankly top-notch . As Geraldine Page is terrific as the suspect widow who hires maids and hides a deadly secret which she will do anything to keep buried . She is excellently accompanied by the always great Ruth Gordon -of Harold and Maude fame- as Mrs Dimmock acting there just as odd , along with the beautiful Rosemary Forsyth , Robert Fuller and especial appearance by Mildred Dunnock . This film belongs to a sub-genre developed in the Sixties and Seventies , dealing with deranged widows or unsettling spinsters , middle-age women who often commit grisly killings , whose main representatives were Robert Aldrich with his big hit "What ever happened to Baby Jane ?" Stars Bette Davis , Joan Crawford, "Hush ...Hush Sweet Charlotte" stars Olivia De Havilland , Bette Davis and Curtis Harrington with "Whoever slew Auntiee Roo ?" Stars Shelley Winters , "What's the matter with Helen ?" Stars Debbie Reynolds , Shelley Winters , "The Killing Kind" with Ann Sothern and "Games" with Simone Signoret .

The motion picture well produced by Robert Aldrich was competently directed by Lee H Katzin and direction assistant Bernard Girard , providing a tense and competetent filmmaking . Rating : 7/10 notable . Well worth watching . Essential and fundamental seeing for the awesome interpretations of the magnificent actresses .

Geraldine Page and a lively script lift this otherwise b-grade film to the status of cult classic. With her unique voice and mannered style of method acting, Page has never disappointed me in any of her many performances. And in this thriller, Theodore Apstein's clever screenplay gives the inimitable Page ample opportunity to portray a woman who, although inwardly venomous, amuses viewers in a stylized, aristocratic sort of way. In a major support role, feisty Ruth Gordon adds spunk. All of which adds up to 101 minutes of viewing fun, despite a grating, fingernails-on-the-blackboard music score, and dubious production values which, toward the film's end, have a black Lincoln turning yellow, then black, then yellow again, and back to black, in the span of 43 seconds. Charming.

What's a poor widow to do when her husband dies and leaves her penniless? Move to the Arizona desert, start a pine tree garden, and fertilize it with human mulch? Well.wouldn't you?? Geraldine Page has quite the green thumb as Mrs. Claire Marrable--the wicked widow with the pine tree fetish--in the chilling thriller "Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?"

Grand dame Bette Davis once quipped: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy night!" Bette, you are so right! If you remember Geraldine Page as the sweet li'l ol' lady from `Trip to Bountiful'.FUGETABOWTIT! Page does a 180 as she transmogrifies from helpless Southern widow to cool, calculating murderess with money and murder on the brain--and a means to achieve both. Page hits the bulls-eye with each scene. All of her nervous ticks are appropriately timed. She is at her best when putting on airs and verbally sparring with unarmed opponents. What a stellar performance! Geraldine, girlfriend, you is flawless!!

Many deliciously diabolical scenes abound, like when pesky canine Chloe threatens to dig up the dirt on her murderous past-time, Page as Marrable barks back: "I have not taken loving and diligent care of my garden to have it wrecked by this vagrant bitch!" Page's character is equally disenchanted with her new next door neighbor, Ms. Vaughn, whom she refers to as "crabgrass, never really quelled, only cropping up secretly and victoriously in another spot". The only one Page can stomach is Ruth Gordon as the inquisitive Aunt Alice--an undercover housekeeper on a mission to get to the root (haha) of all evil and discover the whereabouts of a friend last seen in Page's employ. But when she's tardy serving up cocktails, an impatient Geraldine rips her a new one: `Punctuality is essential to a gracious way of life, which I do not intend to give up on account of you.' Ruth returns fire: `If you wanna live like some Dutchess of Maharati, you better learn how to behave like one!' Geraldine shakes furiously from head to toe after a fiesty Ruth flat-out inquires: "How MANY women have you killed?" Try to suppress a snicker as you watch a pint-sized Ruthie scamper away from Page, who smugly stalks her throughout her secluded desert home to the beat of bongos and a psychotic musical score. Page's wicked laughter is sprinkled spuriously throughout the film to the backdrop of swaying pine trees-how ingenious! Not even Bette Davis cackled with such nefarious mirth as Baby Jane Hudson!

Praise be the master of psycho-shrews on film, Robert Aldrich--who directed the cult smash "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"--for producing this special gem, and a hearty kudos to Lee Katzin for his superlative directing skills. This movie will make you bow down and pray to the Church of Geraldine Page. So what are you waiting for? Rent it tonight.and START PRAYING!!

Claire Marrable has just lost her husband, her fortune, and her rich and refined way of life. What is a spoiled, wealthy, egotistical woman to do? Why pack up and move to Arizona to be near your nephew, and begin killing housekeepers/live-in companions for their life savings of course. Aunt Claire seemingly has a green thumb as she transplants her housekeepers to the ground and plants a pine tree over them. As we see in the first part of the film, there are at least three pine trees before we see the first woman bashed in the head with a rock and then planted. We then see another housekeeper, Edna Tinsley, killed in similar fashion with a shovel. Now, five pine trees in the desert. Enter Mrs. Dimmock, a woman in disguise as a housekeeper out to find out what happened to her long-time friend Edna. This cat and mouse relationship between Claire and Mrs. Dimmock serves as the basis of the film. This film was produced by Robert Aldrich, who was responsible for bringing us films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush..Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Aldrich made films that had older female protagonists popular in the sixties by giving these starring roles to ladies that were a bit aged and considered passe. Geraldine Page stars in this film as Aunt Claire, and if you had any doubts about her talent as an actress prior to seeing this film, no doubts should have remained afterward. Page is simply stunning. She has an aura and charm about her. She has a wonderfully sadistic and maniacal laugh. She has an ability to take dialogue which would not work for any one else and make it sound meaningful. Her portrayal of this wicked, cruel, greedy woman is one of the best I have seen for roles of this ilk. Aiding Ms. Page is Ruth Gordon. Ms. Gordon gives a very good performance as Mrs. Dimmock out to find the truth no matter what the cost might be. Gordon and Page act and interact very well together, and it is their relationship which really makes this film work. The rest of the cast is okay and the direction is okay, but everything is brought up a notch by the two outstanding performances of these two incredible actresses. After seeing this film twice in two days, I am still stunned at the magnificent performance given by Geraldine Page. WOW!

The Grand Guignol/Grande Dame sub-genre of suspense in its decadent phase (though that might sound redundant). Lacking the cinematic iconography of waning Hollywood movie queens like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis, Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon (and Mildred Dunnock, in a featured part) compensate for it with Method histrionics -- and a thrilling confrontation scene to boot -- rising above the stale directing and prosaic mise-en-scenes. Indeed, Page's manic looniness largely carries the contrived but entertaining script (based on "The Forbidden Garden" by Ursula Curtiss), nicely matched by the perpetually plucky Gordon, both wearing bad fright wigs. A respectable entry in the pantheon of menopausal malevolence and, certainly, the type of film they don't make any more. The movie pretty much just runs out of steam, however, unfortunately lacking a satisfactory end, its hair-raising climax coming too early. Gerald Fried's score is expressive and stirring, and certainly a plus.

I was really crazy about this film when I was a kid, and it would show up on t.v. late at night sometimes, I still don't know why. I even sought out the book by Ursula Curtiss that it's based on. For some reason a movie about a hateful old woman who badgers and then kills her housekeepers, takes all their money and buries them in the backyard, and laughs about it, really spoke to me as a kid.

I saw this again recently and was reminded that overall it is, basically, a low-budget 70's t.v. movie. It's slow and sometimes tedious. There's no gore or swearing and the action is minimal. It's depressing and even kind of sad, and the Arizona location shots, while beautiful, leave you feeling dry and dusty inside. The acting is acceptable enough, the subplots are peculiar (what's up with the one lady with all the make-up wanting to start dramas everywhere?), the whole logic behind the plot is debatable, could this have "really happened?" But there are really only two reasons to keep returning to this movie: Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon! Geraldine as "Claire Marrable" is beyond over the top as a woman who has lost everything she held dear (her money, basically) and devises a grisly way to continue living "the good life." It's a tricky situation for a movie--Claire is the one we're going to follow through the whole movie, yet she's a thoroughly despicable character, at least on paper. And yet, the way Ms. Page plays her, there's a hint of vulnerability underneath the captivating madness, and her bullying ways. This is a woman who never had anything to begin with, and so she has nothing to lose by being evil, cruel and even homicidal. It's hard not to feel for her when she's being read her husband's will or in the final scenes, where she still refuses to give in. On the other hand, if you have a somewhat black heart, it's hard not to appreciate the obvious joy that "Claire" feels every time she succeeds in committing another murder. Who hasn't occasionally wanted to "silence" an annoying neighborhood animal? Claire is a living ego, selfish, childish, irrational and pitiless, and she's the film's "hero." It's dark territory to explore and this movie dives right in without timidity.

Then there's Ruth Gordon as "Alice Dimmock," the only one who could possibly be a foil to Claire. Ruth is...well, just Ruth! If you've seen her in any of her other films you know what to expect--a feisty, dominant little old lady who doesn't take crap from anyone. She's always fun, of course, and she has some great moments here. It's unfortunate that her role is so brief and never takes off, but the few moments when Ruth gets to be "Ruth," are amazing and satisfying.

Overall, this is a dark, nasty little movie very typical of a lot of late 60's/early 70's films--cynical, morally ambiguous, ugly to look at and think about and without an easy conclusion of affairs. Not something to race out and see but a decent ride to go on if you happen to be in a dark and quiet mood, and have the time for a movie about old ladies fighting each other...

I don't really care what the credits say about who directed this movie. The director may have directed everyone else, but Geraldine Page directed herself in this fabulous, campy movie of desperation. Every single tick, nuance and mannerism which you have enjoyed watching Geraldine do is in this movie. I have never seen a movie before where the lead actress so blatantly chews up the scenery. She is absolutely magnificent in this thriller sleeper. Where else can you see an actor act against children and animals and STEAL the scene. No where except here. She has a scene in a shed with a dog and SHE comes out on top. I'm sure the dog resigned from acting after this movie; far too much competition. You have got to see this movie if you are a fan of Geraldine's. Her performance is the ONLY thing that makes this movie work and she's up against the timeless Ruth Gordon and a couple of other pretty good actors. Enjoy.

"What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?" is certainly a guilty pleasure in the tradition of such films as "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Who Slew Auntie Roo?" and "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". All three were old lady thrillers--an odd genre in the 1960s and early 70s that featured old women doing VERY bad things. And, as I said, they are all guilty pleasures--films that were never meant to be deep and intellectual--just kitschy entertainment.

The film begins with Clare Marrable (Geraldine Page) bashing her servant over the head and burying her in her yard. Considering she lives in the middle of the Arizona desert, it's not surprising she's not been caught. You soon learn that nasty Clare has made a habit of this sort of thing--she kills off her servants and steals their savings. While you cannot get rich that way, Clare deals in volume--and obviously she is out to add to her growing collection of bodies in the yard. The next one, it seems, is Mrs. Dimmock (Ruth Gordon)--though you aren't terribly sure who is actually hunting who.

The film has quite a bit going for it. Geraldine Page's performance is ridiculously florid and over-the-top---and her scene stealing actually adds to the fun. The plot is also really cool. However, the film also has TONS of plot holes--tons. They are especially apparent during the huge (and very violent) confrontation scene between Page and Gordon---and the scene was VERY awkward and ridiculous. Overall, while certainly not a great film, it is VERY entertaining...in a low-brow sort of way.

I hadn't seen this at all, until very recently on YouTube, and boy was I hooked! I found it a delicious black comedy in every sense of the word. Geraldine Page (a fine actress) very clearly enjoying herself here camping it up as the snooty and obnoxious Mrs Marrible. Geraldine was in good company with Ruth Gordon playing Mrs Dimmock. A very entertaining film, despite its dubious production values. I'd even go as far as to say that I was surprised to find out that this little gem was the supporting feature to the MAIN film, when theatrically released! See it, you will enjoy it!

In 1962, director Robert Aldrich delivered, to an unprepared world, the amazing spectacle of aged Bette Davis and Joan Crawford going at each other and chewing up the scenery in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Two years later, Aldrich followed up with "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte," with Davis, Agnes Moorehead and Olivia de Havilland engaged in similar nasty hijinks. And in 1969, Aldrich handed the directing reins (producing only this time) to Lee H. Katzin, for what may be viewed as the third in a loose trilogy of films dealing with geriatric battleaxes (or aging gargoyles, as my buddy Rob prefers to call them) having at each other with no quarter given. In "What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?," Geraldine Page plays Claire Marrable, who moves to Tucson after her husband dies and leaves her penniless. What's a poor aging biddy to do...except knock off a succession of equally aged housekeeper-companions, steal their cash and plant their remains in the garden? But Claire may have met her match with her next job applicant, Alice Dimmock, played by the forever feisty Ruth Gordon.... As regards those killings, they are almost completely bloodless, and any comparisons that may have been made to 1944's "Arsenic and Old Lace" may be fair ones. But this is hardly a comedy (well, maybe a very black one), and it really is something to see Page and Gordon ripping into each other like two frenzied berserkers. The film makes excellent use of its desert locale, and Gerald Fried's bizarro score keeps the tension ratcheted fairly high throughout. The picture concludes rather realistically, albeit tamely, I feel; how much more satisfying would it have been to see Claire really go up against the vicious tramp dog, Chloe? No telling WHO would've prevailed in that bitch fight!