Big Chuck’s Retro Review: “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte” (1964; VIDEO)

Creepy, scary, dark, grim and totally classic.

This 1964 fright flick was a slow moving, slow building drama which featured two of Hollywood's former glamor dames Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.  Davis plays the demented Charlotte Hollis, a fading Southern belle who is wrongly accused of murdering a suitor (played by a very young Bruce Dern).  de Havilland plays her long lost poorer cousin Miriam who arrives at the sprawling mansion to "care" for her wealthy relative.

Miriam's intentions are anything but pure.

The supporting cast is stellar with outstanding performances by Agnes Moorehead (in one of Hollywood's great death scenes and in a role than garnered her an Academy Award nomination no less), the always sturdy Joseph Cotton and venerable screen stars Cecil Kellaway and Mary Astor.  The film is in black and white and essays the unrelenting stickiness of the Bayou country where the mansion is located (Baton Rouge, Louisiana).

The public gobbled up this film noir box office hit and poor Bette Davis, once dressed in her films by fashion legends, once again scored as the crazed, wild-eyed femme fatale covered in clown makeup that rang the bell with audiences in her previous film "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane."

For a movie now more than a half century old this movie still packs a wallop.

Find it, rent it...enjoy it!