What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #132

I have had this film from Netflix since June of 2011. It was just sitting there waiting to be watched, being looked over for so many other films from Netflix Instant or whatever would happen to come my way. The reason I put it in my queue was because I wanted to see how it compared to Diabolique, a personal favorite of mine.

Directed by Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte is essentially a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s fantastic 1955 feature. It stars Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten in the lead roles and centers on the story of Charlotte (Davis), a woman believed to have killed her lover almost 30 years earlier and she’s been living as a wealthy spinster in her Louisiana mansion ever since. The arrival of her cousin (de Havilland) soon results in Charlotte slowly losing her mind as images of her decapitated lover begin to haunt her.

For anyone that has seen Diabolique you will have some vague ideas as to what will happen next, but I can’t believe you will be able to figure it all out as there are some turns I didn’t see coming. Then again, a few of them are a bit outlandish, but I thought it all came to a very satisfying ending. I would definitely recommend it as something worth watching and I’m finally happy I’ll be able to get a new film from Netflix… now to try and tackle that copy of Bowfinger I’ve had since November.