Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) opens with various views of the plantation house where Charlotte Hollis has lived all her life. The house signifies her family’s former wealth and prominence in the community. It also signifies a moment in 1927 when Charlotte became essentially stuck in time, blamed for the meat cleaver murder of her lover, John Mayhew, whose head and hand are never found.

This film offers a horror-movie gothic view of the South as a place of violence, insanity, intrigue, and decay. Charlotte essentially lives in the past, alone with her housekeeper Velma (Agnes Morehead) and house servants.

Progress looms heavy from the opening scene when we learn that a bridge is being built across the nearby river and that Charlotte’s house has been requisitioned by the Louisiana government. She’s going to have to move, and the house will be torn down. So the film also incorporates the collision of tradition and progress, the old ways vs. the new.

An underlying question that lingers throughout concerns whether Charlotte is insane. As the film progresses, she starts seeing things that lead the audience to wonder whether she is in fact insane or headed that way. But then there is the possibility that someone is trying to drive her insane, or at least to convince local authorities that she needs to be committed.

There is also the unanswered question of whether Charlotte actually killed her Charles Mayhew, the husband of a family relative. Or did someone else do it? Joseph Cotton plays the family doctor Drew Bayliss, who treats Charlotte when she is ill. And Cousin Miriam Deering shows up, after decades, to help Charlotte move.

In considering the issue of Charlotte’s possible insanity the film evokes Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and the governess who might or might not be seeing ghosts. The film is not nearly as subtle as James’ novel, but it does maintain a high level of deception and intrigue until the last scene. There are numerous scares, twists, and turns, though having seen recent films such as Sixth Sense and movies in the Halloween, Jason, and Freddy Kruger vein, modern audiences could predict many of the surprises and turns before they happen.

Set on an old plantation, this film uses iconic actors from earlier films about the American South so that their earlier performances become a subtext. Bette Davis herself appeared in Little Foxes, based on the Lillian Hellman play. That performance itself was building on Davis’ performance as Julie Marsden in Jezebel. Olivia Dehavilland, of course, played Melanie in Gone with the Wind. Davis’ earlier films portrayed the South as a place of competitiveness, financial and sexual jealousy, and intrigue. Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte carries forward with those traits, though Charlotte herself is the victim rather than the perpetrator. Dehavilland’s character at first seems directly descended from her part in GWTW, though later events in the film eventually overturn that notion. Rather than paragon of solicitous virtue, she becomes the symbol of rapacious self-interest, Mrs. Mayhew correctly describes her character when she observes that the only person Miriam has ever been interested in is herself.

The Gothic horror at the center of this film is the murder that occurred in 1927. Rivalries and jealousies undermine the close-knit community, and they are an emblem of the larger traditional Southern community’s collapse. Returning after so many years, Miriam is an agent of progress. She is in public relations, we are told, and as it turns out, she is an agent of immorality and evil that is associated with the modern world and that is undermining tradition. In effect, she is allied with the forces of progress that are building the bridge, displacing Charlotte and her kind, and destroying the past.

The Skeleton Key (2005) seems to draw heavily from this film, but Hush . . . Hush, Charlotte itself, with its emphasis on insanity and psychological innuendoes, seems to work squarely in the film tradition of Tennessee Williams. In fact, when Charlotte rides off at the end of the film either to the police station or the insane asylum, there are clear echoes of A Streetcar Named Desire, with Charlotte affecting the same air of feigned aristocratic hauteur as Blanche DuBois. Unfortunately for Bette Davis, Vivian Leigh was more credible in her role than Davis. Davis was never capable of a great range of emotions, but within her range she could be very good. In this film she plays her role effectively, but she is more caricature than tragic victim.