SCREEN REVIEW: - A Movie for Two Divas, “By JOHN ROSENFIELD {Casting Joan Crawford and! Bette Davis in the same picture i lath pcreenniae was like RCA-Victor's strenuously] Fiala! pitied sSdUnecel” by" Hebe cogtgived duet between Enrica} f2,,AMqucty Ri ‘Baby Jane’ MAJESTIC: What Mi ease ew , af DEE: Cardso and Tits Ruf, “S| ell {80 fae Aes ae iy Ciel Marmorro Giuro" from} Bytes "Mace Bann Verdi's Otello" was finally} Pelt, 8 ie enact chosen as the one duct in which) Mrs. Bates... both men could blast their golden! p7s,Jane teh topinotes on even terms. | . For the movie, not even Zoelens. Bette, in a playful moment, Akin's "The ou Maid” would sul! serves Joan a dead rat for break fice. One of the sersions of might have been beyond fast and her dead, unplucked| parakeet for lunch, ‘the style of cither cinedonna as: soluta, The vehicle selected was, She also rips out the television, an artfully contrived mystery-\telechone and buzzer connections melodrama, now at the Majestic,|in Joan’s life, In an angry mo- called “What Ever Happened to!ment, she kicks Joan into a pulp| Baby Jane?” chosen from obscure’ with a siciousness that would do} authorship by Robert Aldrich, credit to a stormtrcoper. Later a. preducerdlirector releasing Sho trusses hee up. through Joan and Bette’s last; Bette, growing crazier and) boss, the Brothers Warner. “THg'picture exploits the Osear- baby-act with a chance beatnik: wlaning specialties of both, For accompanish, superbly played by Miss’ Davis there is demented'adipose Victor Buono, Unfor- cruelty behind « baggy facade ofi tunalcly, the elderly and forgotten abandoned character acting, For Baby Jane must slay the loyal ‘tawford there is beauty in Negro serving maid (Maidie Nor. s, this time perilous, Much} man), and soon both girls are fu- of'Miss Davis' withered appear-igitives from the “efficient” Los ance; was’ applied by “Makeup.""!Angeles police, as we Know ther) Miss’ Crawford, except in close. through television. ups, fooks “fragrant” as she al-’ The crippled Joan hasn't long! ‘ways did. * FOR SINGLE-ISSUE portrayals, 4ooth old girls were the best in the! usiness and had ‘ong careers, many husbands and large hank ‘accounts to prove it. Of the pair, Belte is the younger by 13 days, having opened her big cyes for thsefirst time on April 5, 1908. Joett began suffering on March 23.| fh. “Baby Jane," Beite is the: elder, having achieved fame and Joriune as a disgustingly cunning! ¢hild star in vaudeville with a rief Mary Picklordian movie ca-; feer. Joan came later and cut ai film diva swathe like, well, a Joan Crawptbrd, 3 Bot are hasbeens when we fneet them, Bette a victim of time and a steady tonic of gin. Joan went into the discard as the fésylt of an unhappy meeting with 4 motor car, which left her teinnled and in a wheel chair. + The-“residuals” sustain the sis- tergokeeping them in tawdry mid. dleclass comfort on a side street! “off.Sunset Boulevard” and, in Joan's case, furnishing an ever ning’s retrospective glory through: old television films. . AS THE PLOT sickens, it thick- ito go. Dying on tre Ccoon Park’ jsands, she and Beitz arrive at a belated moment of truih. We will] their secret but repeat |Bette’s one lucid remark, “So we; lmight have been friends all these’ years.” Joan gulps. “oan Crawford so SBeath comes on the Sands of Ocean Park, Anteg |more decadent than Miss Davis} ht crazier, tantalizes a return to her|Miss Davis also managed one-up: doing a lunatic reprise of her} Keith-Albee dance on the beach, “BABY JANE” is little more! than a “chiller.” It’s suspense is contrived, Logical and peaceable] plot solutions are dodged by per- verse coincidences, The comic! relief," Buono and his Irish| mother (Marjorie Bennet) is ‘ab-boots pounding into Miss] Crawford's ribs, IF “WHAT EVER Happened to| Baby Jane?” has a fault, it is al return to that speciousness of plot inventions and motivations that earned billions for Hollywood, when Queen Bette and Saint Joan) actually reigned, IN A WORD: An engrossing if! ‘unimportant endeavor with two} jaged stars doing whal they best do, Miss Davis cloes more things.) You like Miss Crawford better, manship. Her daughter, Barbara, Merrill, plays a youngster in the, picture, | { 1