You’ve no doubt seen plenty of movie villains before – nasty pasties determined to destroy the world, or defeat the hero, or ask employees to work on the weekend. But you’ve never seen a hellraiser quite like Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, a film that stormed in cinemas 60 years ago and, by God, still packs a punch. The greatest feature of Davis’ wall-rattling performance is that it’s so strong, so toxically and overpoweringly good, it seems to swell and morph the very fabric of the production around her, lifting the whole film into a heightened state of melodrama.
